It is funny how things change as you move through life. On a sunny, summer afternoon in my bachelor days I might have done any number of things for fun. Now, as a home owner and family man, a big time is had in a trip to the dump - and I'm not joking.
I met my wife when she purchased the house next door to mine. She bought it from her great-aunt and great-uncle who moved into assisted living. They just took what they needed for day to day living with them, and since it was being sold to someone in the family, everything else was left behind. This included some nice things as well as expired food, crumbling flower pots, a dead lawn mower - everything. Over the last year or so, we have been taking truck loads of miscellaneous items to Goodwill and the dump.
It always starts innocently enough. I don't think that we have ever set out with the plan to take a load of stuff to the dump. We start cleaning some part of the house or garage or shed or carport, etc. and we fill up the trash cans, recycle bins, or yard waste cart immediately. I'll say that we could just take a load to the dump, and then we will start to look around. What about this? What about that - and then it's on. We find more junk and more junk and more junk, and in no time at all, the truck is full.
The funny thing is, taking a truck load of stuff to the dump is very rewarding. The obvious part is that some corner of the place is so much cleaner than it was. It is like a weight has been lifted. Now that part of the house or yard is free from clutter and can resume its normal life. What is less obvious is the sheer joy that we get in flinging those old items into the pit at the transfer station. How often do you really get to heave old junk high in the air and see it smashed? This thing that has been moldering away in the corner of the yard, nagging you, tugging on your sub conscious to-do list - not just gone - expelled - cast out! Be gone! You don't have to pick up the mess, either because what? - you are at the dump! You just fling it into the pit. The bulldozer smashes anything that you don't. Imagine if you will, a horrible, 1960's, light pink toilet flying through the air and shattering into a million pieces. Glorious.
Last weekend we decided to build a gate in the fence, but first we had to clean the area around it. There was an ancient, green fiberglass, Sears fishing boat that we had been walking around for more than a year. The hull and deck were coming apart, there were holes, etc., but there it sat. A ten foot long, moldy, eye sore. It sat on the remains of some wooden deck who's plywood was so rotten that we could crumble it in our hands like old graham crackers. To the dump! We loaded that boat into the back of my truck and then began to fill the boat with rotten boards. More and more disgusting things were discovered and thrown into the boat until it was full. It was not until we were driving into the dump that I began to worry. Would they accept a 10 foot long, fiberglass boat? Would they say that it was too big? No one said anything to us, so we backed the truck up to the pit. With Amber on one side, and me on the other, we gave the boat a shove. It's center of balance tipped down and it flew off the back of the truck, into the pit. Fantastic. We only had a couple of minutes to admire the flying, debris filled boat, and worry that someone might come out and yell at us for throwing it in there, when the bulldozer rumbled by. It did not crush or smash the boat - it pulverized it. Then it backed over it, smashed what little pieces were left of the boat with its blade, and then drove over it again. There were no pieces left that were bigger than a toaster. This thing that we had been trying to figure out what to do with for more than a year was gone, and we were freed from our bondage to one more piece of junk. The transformation of that piece of the yard is amazing, and it feels like we really did something. It is weird, but I love a good day at the dump.
I met my wife when she purchased the house next door to mine. She bought it from her great-aunt and great-uncle who moved into assisted living. They just took what they needed for day to day living with them, and since it was being sold to someone in the family, everything else was left behind. This included some nice things as well as expired food, crumbling flower pots, a dead lawn mower - everything. Over the last year or so, we have been taking truck loads of miscellaneous items to Goodwill and the dump.
It always starts innocently enough. I don't think that we have ever set out with the plan to take a load of stuff to the dump. We start cleaning some part of the house or garage or shed or carport, etc. and we fill up the trash cans, recycle bins, or yard waste cart immediately. I'll say that we could just take a load to the dump, and then we will start to look around. What about this? What about that - and then it's on. We find more junk and more junk and more junk, and in no time at all, the truck is full.
The funny thing is, taking a truck load of stuff to the dump is very rewarding. The obvious part is that some corner of the place is so much cleaner than it was. It is like a weight has been lifted. Now that part of the house or yard is free from clutter and can resume its normal life. What is less obvious is the sheer joy that we get in flinging those old items into the pit at the transfer station. How often do you really get to heave old junk high in the air and see it smashed? This thing that has been moldering away in the corner of the yard, nagging you, tugging on your sub conscious to-do list - not just gone - expelled - cast out! Be gone! You don't have to pick up the mess, either because what? - you are at the dump! You just fling it into the pit. The bulldozer smashes anything that you don't. Imagine if you will, a horrible, 1960's, light pink toilet flying through the air and shattering into a million pieces. Glorious.
Last weekend we decided to build a gate in the fence, but first we had to clean the area around it. There was an ancient, green fiberglass, Sears fishing boat that we had been walking around for more than a year. The hull and deck were coming apart, there were holes, etc., but there it sat. A ten foot long, moldy, eye sore. It sat on the remains of some wooden deck who's plywood was so rotten that we could crumble it in our hands like old graham crackers. To the dump! We loaded that boat into the back of my truck and then began to fill the boat with rotten boards. More and more disgusting things were discovered and thrown into the boat until it was full. It was not until we were driving into the dump that I began to worry. Would they accept a 10 foot long, fiberglass boat? Would they say that it was too big? No one said anything to us, so we backed the truck up to the pit. With Amber on one side, and me on the other, we gave the boat a shove. It's center of balance tipped down and it flew off the back of the truck, into the pit. Fantastic. We only had a couple of minutes to admire the flying, debris filled boat, and worry that someone might come out and yell at us for throwing it in there, when the bulldozer rumbled by. It did not crush or smash the boat - it pulverized it. Then it backed over it, smashed what little pieces were left of the boat with its blade, and then drove over it again. There were no pieces left that were bigger than a toaster. This thing that we had been trying to figure out what to do with for more than a year was gone, and we were freed from our bondage to one more piece of junk. The transformation of that piece of the yard is amazing, and it feels like we really did something. It is weird, but I love a good day at the dump.
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