Fear the Crab

I spent the better part of Sunday afternoon cleaning my room. The tools of the trade were a paper shredder and a canister vacuum, the kind you put water into a reservoir where all the dirt, dust and hair collects for disposal. After three hours of moving crap around, shredding old confidential documents, sucking up dust and cobwebs and other things, I ended up with more garbage than the rest of the house.

Dust, dirt, cobwebs and hair? Twice the amount gathered earlier from the house. I know because I emptied and replaced the water in the vacuum before I started on this cleaning venture.

Shredded paper? Three 10-gallon garbage bags full. This includes any old medical statements, junk mail, financial reports, and basic documents that aren’t exactly confidential, but that have my name and address on them.

Garbage? Two 33-gallon bags of crap that I’ve kept around the room for ages. I think the amount of junk I had lying around contributed much to the room’s general squalor and decrepitude. I got rid of a few boxes, most of which were empty. There was an old laptop bag that had a broken latch, torn seam, and ripped shoulder straps. Why I had kept it for as long as I did, I probably won’t know.

The problem immediately afterward was how to dispose of these garbage bags. The paper would be sent to the recyclers, of course, provided they accept them and I can find a location convenient for myself. The other bags… well, with the holidays falling on our neighborhood’s garbage pickup days, we have limited service. Plus, my parents are in the beginning stages of a move, so they’ve a few boxes of junk. New Year’s Eve will have fireworks residue that will have to be swept up. Then there’s the everyday household refuse. This all means my garbage bin will be full for pickup.

So I figured I would drive into work early and dump my garbage in the university’s bins around campus. No one really seems to mind, though I don’t think the community at-large makes it a weekly habit of foisting garbage off to a state-run facility. I felt that since the uni was in skeleton mode for the holidays and school itself being out of session, the amount of trash would be minimal and leave some room for mine.

Instead I found something better. Right outside my subdivision there is a stretch of townhouses along the main road. It seems their garbage system involves collecting bags from each townhouse and putting them on the street for collection. I simply pulled over and added my two bags to the immense pile. I know that technically, I probably am not supposed to do that, and maybe it’s kind of silly for me to permit myself a bit of selfish indulgence. Meh.