Friends

19 December 2017

REFUSE ... AND MEMORY


One day this week I celebrated Memory Lapse Day with a vengeance.

Where I live the wheelie bins are emptied on a regular basis, 'everyday' rubbish is collected weekly, recycling and gardening stuff every two weeks.  With the amount of recycling stuff growing faster than weeds in the garden it is imperative that we dispose of it ASAP.

Paper is the worst, I have never seen so much. I don’t have newspapers yet there is always a couple of bulky ones to dispose of. Most of them advertise houses for sale and all the estate agents put out their adverts, which creates bigger and better newspapers each week. Sometimes the recycling section of the wheelie bin is so full I can hardly shut the lid.

I start on Sunday and continue on Monday, ready for the Tuesday collection. Yes, it takes me that long because more and more unwanted paper keeps coming through my letterbox. There’s hardly any ordinary rubbish because of this recycling.

Now, this is where the story really starts. The following is part of the email I sent to my stepdaughter in Oz.

Today was memory lapse day with a vengeance. It was also refuse and recycling collection day which meant a last minute look around for stuff to get rid of. Actually did most of it over the weekend but there's always more empty bottles and stuff that I can throw out, plus more paper. I found more of the latter then started to break up a box I had overlooked. One was a LARGE box that had been lying around for a while so I decided it was time for it to go. ONLY...web it was  YOUR BOX, that I had completely forgotten about .’ 

(something ordered and despatched to me in the UK to await her visit to the UK)

‘Don't panic, after examining the vast amount of brown paper and wondering what the heck it was I began the task of straightening it in readiness for recycling bin. It was then my memory returned and the three packets (which were beneath what seemed to be about 15 feet of crumpled paper, not wrapped, just shoved in and which could have been missed) are now safe. Amazon has stopped putting delivery notes in parcels so there was nothing to see but crumpled brown paper. It took me about 15 minutes to unravel the paper in order to hand it over to the paper recycle-rs but I knew they wouldn't want the nail polish. 

On receipt I had put the box in a place in the front room where it would be safe!!!!!! 

I look forward to a reprimand.’

Word to self, in future write everything down….. if I remember!

Thankfully, I wasn’t reprimanded.

6 comments:

  1. I was really confused with your sentence "everyday rubbish is collected weekly". Is that a oxymoron? :D

    The crumpled up brown paper Amazon use in their parcels drives me mad. I have to smooth it all out before it can go in the recycling bin. Btw We only have our rubbish and our recycling collected every two weeks, alternating weeks. You imagine how much recycling there is in 2 weeks, and we have 2 daily newspapers as well!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joe, there has been talk of extending the gap between collections but it hasn't happened tet... although the snowfall did result in a two weekly collection.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We have a recycle center "Fort Grumpy" only several miles from us that accepts drop offs several times a week. Much easier for me to use that then to prepare refuse for curbside pickup. I haven't thrown away any packages in error...yet.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sounds like a typical day to me :) We save those large pieces of packing paper for fireplace kindling, although that is not practical for most.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Word to self, in future write everything down….. if I remember!"

    HA! I feel the same way, Valerie! For the past several years I've noticed that my short term memory has gotten very forgetful - ha!

    Lucky for me, we have recycling bins in the basement of my apartment building so I'm always reminded whenever I go downstairs to do my laundry.

    Hope your week's been faaaaaabulous!
    X

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Ron. It's good to know that I'm not alone in the forgetfulness stakes. Someone told me to keep talking about it - she said it relieves the embarrassment. I've yet to sort that one out...gg.

    ReplyDelete

If you're new to A Mixed Bag you might find something to interest you, a bit of mirth, a story or two, or some pictures. I'm so pleased you popped in, do leave a comment if you have time.