leaflet

I'm sitting at a coffee shop. A man handed me a leaflet as I was walking here today. I thanked him and put it in my pocket, with no real intention of reading it. It's not as if he really knows me. Sure, he took the time to give it to me, but did he write it? Are these his words? Did he give me one because he thought I'd care or because he hoped I would?

It's probably political. I'm tired of politics. Who is he to assume I ought to care whatever he's talking about? Am I not my own person? Am I unable to be adequately informed in this, what we are arrogantly terming 'the information age'? I have Google, CNN.com, Wikipedia. I'm a short walk away from a decent library. This little poorly made leaflet is supposed to tell me the truth. It's not going to.

I crumple the leaflet and throw it in the nearest trash receptacle, single-handedly discarding the work, hopes, opinions and beliefs of the man who met me in the streets, deeming them all irrevocably useless without so much as looking at it.