The Answer Is No

by Fredrik Backman

Because a funny thing about rule-loving people is that to them it seems more important to impose punishment than it is to actually solve problems, and a funny thing about rule-breaking people is that they seem to find breaking rules a lot easier to do if someone else has broken them first. Very few people are really the “throw a frying pan on the sidewalk like it’s nothing” kind of people. But if there is a frying pan there already, and you happen to have a frying pan of your own that you would like to get rid of? Is that even really a crime, then? It really doesn’t feel that way, does it? Someone’s going to have to haul the first frying pan away anyway, aren’t they, so what difference does another frying pan make? Like almost none, right? And then a person with a rug comes along, thinking, Well, if somebody has to take those two frying pans to the landfill anyway, surely it won’t make much difference if this teeny-weeny rug is there too? And that’s how the pile becomes a pile. And then other people walk by, thinking to themselves, How horrible! A pile of garbage right here on our nice sidewalk! What kind of criminal would do something so disgusting? Fine, upstanding, selfless citizens like ourselves would certainly never initiate a pile of junk like that! But . . . you know . . . what if the pile’s like . . . already there? Then maybe our small piece of garbage won’t make such a big difference after all?