Baby Bwogger Joanna Yu contemplates the fragility of existence when she encounters a strewn sidewalk salad.

I was walking down Broadway, ready to start my day with a soy latte from Starbucks when I saw you. A bright red tomato caught my eye, and I looked to the left to see you, spilled Sweet Green salad, in all your wasted glory. I wanted to stay a while and gaze at your pretty leaves scattered across the asphalt, the contrast between the bright hues of your shredded carrots and purple cabbage scattered across the pale grey asphalt. 

Who did this to you? I am sure it was not intentional, but to have no remorse or consideration and to just leave you lying there, exposed to the cold harsh eyes of Columbia students is just evil. Now, everybody can judge you, street salad, as they picture in their minds how some buffoon tripped over the shoelaces of his Gucci sneakers and dropped you, only pausing to take a picture of you for their Snapchat streaks before re-inserting their left airpod and walking away.

But I am not so callous. The emotions that I felt that day were as real as my pain when I spilled an entire cup of bubble tea on myself after the straw ripped a too-large hole in the plastic covering. You had so much unfulfilled potential, street salad. Others may label you as just a $14 salad in a biodegradable container, but you capture the pinnacle of White-Vsco-Girl-Privilege that nothing else quite does. To gaze upon you is to recognize cognitive dissonance between buying a big bowl of leaves two times a week and refusing to pay $25 for a textbook. 

Your existence serves a higher purpose, however. The birds, insects and the rats will be grateful to find you and will devour parts of you before you are finally swept into the NYC streets. The taxicabs and busses will scatter you across the borough, and the city will reclaim you as you breathe life into the crevices of subway stations and street gutters, forever be a part of us.

                     Sad Salad :( via Elyse