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Each holiday season, thousands of gingerbread houses are constructed, gather dust, and eventually are thrown away. This constitutes a massive burden for waste disposal services, which must commission extra trucks to haul away all of the cinnamon and clove-flavored debris. With extra trucks come extra pollution, the consumption of precious fossil fuels, and a worsening of already-serious climate problems.
We at Tacky Living wondered if there was a more ecologically friendly means of disposal. A natural way, one which would divert these houses from the waste stream. Wouldn't it be wonderful if nature itself would just make these unwanted houses disappear? Perhaps, we thought, if we put a house outside nature would send one of its many furry representatives around to take care of the issue.
We decided to put our theory to the test and use our house for the betterment of mankind. Here are the results. |
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Day 1
We place the house outside on a plastic chair. Will anything take the bait? We won't know for another 24 hours. The suspense is awful! |
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Day 2
The second day dawns cool and crisp. We rush outside with a great sense of anticipation. Much to our disappointment, the house still appears to be intact. |
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But - wait! the ENTIRE Christmas tree is missing! It has vanished without a trace! Could this be evidence that nature's waste disposal team has been at work? |
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The deck is littered with gumdrops. Somehow this is a more shocking sight than the disappearance of the Christmas tree.
Perhaps, we think, research this dangerous shouldn't be carried out quite so close to Tacky Living's headquarters. The gingerbread outhouse is hurriedly moved to a new site. |
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Day 3
Day 3 also dawns cool and crisp; that happens a lot around here. More to the point, someone - or something - has been hard at work. The door to the outhouse has been thoroughly gnawed. |
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The rear wall has also been nibbled, exposing the tasty peach-flavored toilet seat. It's official: the outhouse is no longer fit for for private use. |
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Perhaps most ominously of all, the snowman's pretzel stick arms have been entirely chewed off, rendering him incapable of defending himself. |
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Day 4
Chilled by the events of the previous days, we move the outhouse to an even more distant location, the top of a compost bin. By morning, the outhouse's door has been thoroughly savaged.
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The hole in the back wall has been enlarged as well, converting the gingerbread outhouse to a gingerbread gazebo. |
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A new hole has been started in the side wall. Perhaps our nighttime visitor prefers fresh air and a scenic view when it takes its ease. |
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Day 5
We are determined to find out who our nightly visitor is. Perhaps a team of elves? Or, more likely, an esteemed member of the family Rattus Rattus.
During the night we stand by the screen door and periodically flick the outside light on. Despite our best efforts, we only see a flustered opossum, which is too large and ungainly for this delicate work.
By dawn, the door and one side of the outhouse are gone. The front of the snowman has also been gnawed: our mysterious visitor has taken its first tantalizing bite of marzipan! |
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Day 6
The snowman is no more. It seems that our visitor has quite a taste for sweetened almond paste. |
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This time, there's been no substantial new work on the back of the structure. |
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Farewell, snowman. We hardly knew ye! |
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Day 7
The outhouse lays in ruins. When we investigate more closely, we are glad to not find casualties. |
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Day 8
Only a few headless gummi bears and scattered peppermint sticks show that a once-proud edifice once stood here. Even the chewing gum toilet paper and peach toilet seat are gone.
Somewhere in the dirty alleys of the city, a small animal's stomach is aching.
Note from the Editor: if you wish to conduct your own set of experiments to verify our results, the instructions for creating a gingerbread outhouse are available here. |
