It seems like we all spend a lot of time and energy complaining about our nation, our government, our economy, our countrymen. So I was pleasantly surprised when I suddenly realized today that I had something really positive to say. I discovered something that we are doing well, even beautifully.

Before I explain my epiphany, there are three things you should know about me. First, I’m an efficiency freak. I am always looking for ways to do things faster and easier, or better yet, ways to do multiple things at once. It comes from years of overscheduling myself so badly that I had no choice but to find clever ways of multitasking to get myself out of the mess I’d made. The best example of my efficiency obsession (and the most embarrassing) is my grocery shopping behavior. Not only do I have a thorough shopping list, it is in order according to the setup of the store where I buy my groceries. And heaven forbid I should miss something and have to backtrack! I mutter furiously under my breath any time I have to go back to an aisle I already visited. And when my grocery remodeled and re-ordered their aisles, I actually took pictures of the signs so I could re-organize my list.

The second thing is related to my love of efficiency; I hate waste. Wasted time, wasted energy, wasted food, wasted paper. Anything I can recycle gets sent to Goodwill or friends or the recycling plant.  My refrigerator’s produce bins are checked regularly; anything that is starting to go bad must either be frozen or used somehow.

The final thing you should know is that I am crazy about charities, especially those involving the environment, education or small creatures (children or animals). Yesterday alone, I donated to five separate philanthropy projects. I’m not bragging; I simply cannot say no.

Okay, so given those three things about my personality, you can understand how excited I was yesterday when I realized that I was incidentally involved in an activity that combined all those things. Not only did it satisfy me personally, it also proved to me that Americans are still pretty darned resourceful despite the entitlement and laziness that has crept into our society in the last few decades.

Here’s what happened: I bought a diet Coke.

Yep. Not just any diet Coke – a 50-cent can of diet Coke. But wait, my story gets better! I bought this particular diet Coke from our university’s Anthropology Club. They sell cans of soda for 50 cents as a club fundraiser. Now, I like buying soda from them for two reasons. One, they’re right next door to our Writing Center, and two, they only charge 50 cents, which is 75 cents less than the bottled Cokes in the vending machines down in the basement.

Okay, so follow this. The professor who sponsors the Anthropology Club buys the Cokes in bulk from Costco.  The club sells them and keeps the profits for the club funds. I buy the soda. Then I take the empty can home and put it in a bin in my garage. When the bin is full, I take it to my son’s elementary school. His school has recycle bins for aluminum cans; they use proceeds from the recycling as a fundraiser. Oh my.

It’s just the kind of thing I love: efficient recycling for philanthropy. Coca-Cola gets a profit; Costco gets a profit;  the Anthropology Club makes money for its fundraiser; I save money on my soda; my son’s school makes money for their fundraiser; the recycling company gets raw materials to sell back to Coca-Cola to start the whole process over again.

I know it’s uber-geeky to get this excited over a little process like this, but I have been buying soda from Anthropology for years without thinking twice about any of it. For some reason, it hit me today as I was taking the cans to my son’s school. This is something America is doing well. We are using our ultra-materialistic, capitalist system to do some good things.  We’re supporting education, supporting kids, maintaining the economy and recycling.  It made me proud.