Revenge of the Trash Mom
Kicking it curbside and losing my ever-loving mind
Hi friends! I’m traveling with week to SXSW EDU in Austin, TX to sit on a featured (!) panel about Dungeons & Dragons in schools. To celebrate I’m going to share a story I wrote a couple years ago about recycling. So yeah, I’m recycling a story about recycling. I promise 98% of you have never heard this story and the 2% of you did really liked it so I’m sure you won’t mind the refresher. It’s even gotten a fresh edit!
Without further ado, off to the archives for you! I’ll just be over here squirting Frizz Ease into tiny bottles.
Today I lost it.
I was nearly gone for good, my friends. Put on the curb like the recycling that nearly did me in. But unlike recycling, I wouldn’t return as a cute pair of flats or trendy water bottle favored by all the hip, young millennials in the hot yoga class you pass every Saturday on your way to get beignets. So really I was like garbage. Whatever. I’ve been called worse.
When you work from home and have almost every provision delivered, cardboard adds up. Couple that with a tendency to scroll Instagram before bed when I’m most susceptible to DIY influencers with an affiliate link and the much needed dopamine rush found by scoring a sweet deal on new patio furniture and you have more boxes than a Hammacher Schlemmer crossword puzzle. This should surprise no one, especially Seattle Public Utilities waste management professionals.
On the eve of recycling day, I lugged all my boxes to the curb, even broke down a few of them. Then I took the biggest box– the one the new gray strap accent chairs came fully assembled in–and loaded it with the (mostly) broken down boxes. I was quite satisfied with my work. And then I kicked back on my new furniture with a fresh White Claw and carried on.
But as recycling day drew to a close, I noticed something odd. My boxes were still on the curb. It was quiet in the neighborhood. The neighbors’ bins were back in their driveways signaling something very bad had happened: The recycling truck came and went, leaving my pile of boxes behind!
What in the helliest of hells was going on?
I ran outside to find a disturbing note taped to the blue recycling bin.
Uhh, okay. But what’s the oops? Buying furniture from a national chain retailer instead of a local outdoor furniture purveyor? In these times? Yeah, I feel bad about that too, but it’s hardly Seattle Public Utilities business.
On the back of the slip someone wrote: BOXES ARE TOO BIG.
Well, of course they’re big! Fully assembled furniture came in these boxes! FINE. Maybe I could have broken all of them down. Maybe the poor driver had a sloped disk or something and couldn’t lift anything over 87 pounds. Whatever. So, I lugged all the cardboard, now soggy with my tears, back to my driveway. In the two weeks between collections more dopamine was chased and therefore more cardboard procured. It’s a vicious cycle.
On the eve of my next pick up, I went back outside with an old pair of kid scissors and tore apart the boxes. Bart came to help, but all I did was yell at him for NOT MAKING THE CARDBOARD SMALL ENOUGH or putting a MEDIUM SIZE PIECE OF CARDBOARD IN A LARGE PIECE OF CARDBOARD STACK. There’s a method here! Any civilized, environmentally conscious person could see that! I stacked the cardboard into neat piles and shored it up with the paper grocery bags filled with Lunchables boxes, White Claw empties, and wine bottles that couldn’t fit in the bin. It looked quite nice, I thought.
One plus to working from home is that I could stare out the window for four hours waiting for my pick-up. The blue truck rolled up just as Chip and Joanna were about to show the Pepper family the big reveal on the Plain Jane House. I threw down my soy bacon and toast sandwich and ran out the door just as I witnessed the driver rip a piece of paper from a pad and stick it to my can. Oh, HELLS TO THE ABSOLUTE NO. I went thumping down the porch steps in my PJs (no bra, so sorry, Mom, but bras are for people with purpose) and asked what was going on. (Maybe I ran down the steps screaming, “NO NO NO NO NO!” I’m just capturing the essence of our conversation here.)
In lieu of answering with his voice the driver pointed to the Oops note and headed back to the truck.
“No! No oops! I broke down all the boxes. You said they were too big so I made them small! I yelled at my husband! I have cuts on my knuckles! I made them nice for you!”
Again, instead of using a voice, he pointed to a highlighted bit on the Oops slip.
Resigned to having to use his big boy voice, he mumbled, “They’re flat, but they’re not bundled.”
Well, that’s new information and I told him so. I never heard nothing about bundles!
“What do I bundle them with?” I asked. “Ribbon? Shoelaces? The intestinal lining of a golden goose? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME???”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. But I”m not taking them. I told you last time to bundle them.”
Look, friends. I know for a fact that he never mentioned bundles because I anguished over that goddamn Oops note. You see, clutter and disorder is a major anxiety trigger for me and I’m all stocked up on triggers right now. Every time I looked out the window and saw the literal trash piling up around my car, my chest tightened and my palms started to sweat. I lost sleep over those boxes. I cried to my neighbors about the UNFAIRNESS of recycling only getting picked up every two weeks and how ONE PERSON can have SO MUCH POWER! If the first Oops note said rub organic oatmeal and fur from a prize lineage Pomeranian on seventeen rocks and create a protective stone circle around your cardboard I would’t have batted an eye. That shit would done. No questions asked. Had I been told, I WOULD HAVE BUNDLED MY CARDBOARD, SIR!
Then this lying ass-can put his hand up signaling we were done with this conversation, walked back to his truck, drove it nineteen inches to my neighbor’s curb, and resumed operations. Look, I’m not trying to throw anyone under the big, blue truck here, but her boxes weren’t flattened or bundled so…
Here is where things start getting fuzzy.
I may or may not have ran up and down the sidewalk, in my PJs, braless, shouting expletives. I really don’t know because I think my rage caused me to black out. When I came to I was frantically shouting REPRESENTATIVE into my phone, trying to reach someone at Seattle Public Utilities. When I ran back outside to get the Oops slip for reference, I bumped into the kind, considerate gentleman who collects the compost. He was as confused as I was.
“Why didn’t he take your stuff?” he asked, watching the big, blue bitch truck amble nineteen inches every twenty-three seconds down the street.
“BUNDLED! BOXES! SO MEAN!” And I told this kind, befuddled man the whole sordid tale dating back two weeks.
“That’s not right,” he said, pulling out his cell phone, “Not right at all. I’m calling our team lead.”
He hung up the phone, looked me in the eye, and said, “It is done.”
Did I hug him? Did I rush into his arms? Did I kiss his wedding ring? No, but I thought about it. Maybe I would have if I was wearing a bra and my son wasn’t watching from our bedroom window. Instead I very stoically stood on the sidewalk and said, “I will be ready.”
I spent the next forty minutes tearing apart the garage looking for twine and had to take apart two Halloween decorations to get enough. Then I sorted and stacked the cardboard into beautiful stacks reminiscent of French bakery bundles.
Forty-five minutes later another truck pulled up. This must be what a lost hiker alone and hungry on a mountaintop feels upon seeing a rescue chopper on the horizon. I ran outside once more ready to chain myself to the tires if these boxes weren’t headed for a pulping machine in the next five minutes. I even put on a bra.
“I’m sorry this didn’t get picked up earlier,” a different driver said. “That guy is lazy.” He shook is head in disgust. Clearly this was not the first complaint on is route.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
“Even bundled, he’d complain they were too heavy. He just loves sticking those stupid on people’s cans. What a jerk.”
Did I take immense pleasure in that man’s colleagues ripping apart his work ethic? Am I excited to work from home for no other reason other than enduring my nemesis doesn’t employ any retaliatory actions? Do I hope the blue truck rolls up at the same time my new best friend arrives so I can stand on the porch in my nicest sweats and shout, “George, it’s so good to see you again! Did you and Marissa enjoy the homemade chocolate bundt cake? Don’t forget to empty, clean, and dry that case of champagne before tossing it in your blue bin!” Of course! I watch the Real Housewives, duh!
Do I also have fourteen box cutters and 1,100 feet of twine just in case there’s a really great sale on pop-up, build-it-yourself backyard cottages? Let’s just say I’m a new woman. Made with recycled parts of course.
XO,
Shelly
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I feel your pain. We've all been there. At least you took out your handy sense of humor tool to cut your problem down to size.
Shelly, you never fail to make me snort with laughter. This was ::chef's kiss::