During his time as television critic for the Los Angeles times Howard Rosenberg was delighted by a bit on Conan O'Brien's nascent show. For a rapidly developing time shift and home video world he presented a video byte that could be used in whatever setting the resourceful viewer, maybe even auteur, could utilize. It was called the "laughing genie". It simply was Conan, garbed in every genie outfit ever utilized as witnessed in his television-devouring youth, the television of few channels but copious syndication and "D" films, with his hands on his hips and laughing in what we call hearty, maybe lusty style.

This morning I made one of several contributions to the building's dumpster and noticed something where the prongs of the garbage truck are inserted. It was the left side, if you were wondering, and most likely to be noticed since I usually approach from the left. It was some orange peel with a bit of the fruit attached. Yes, I corrected the over/under-sight.

How much extra effort would it have taken the devourer to simply toss it in the common weal? The plastic lid isn't the world's heaviest. Now that I think of it, I would not have been remiss a line ago if I had attributed the deposit to a "kid"; we are awash in their playing and littering and generally they may not reach the lid.

I am sadly behind, a baby boomer's expression for non-existent, in my use of digital picture gathering so I cannot offer you a picture, let alone a professional network quality video, of the peel in its limbo: a limbo of neither on the ground nor in the proper place. And not likely to be noticed by a lot of folks.

In the spirit of the Halloween gross-out film season soon upon us, I offer that the truck did come about an hour later and further yuck was avoided.

So a metaphor for---something. That daily fruit recommendation belongs in you, not the refuse receptacle of choice.