Friday, December 13, 2013

Trashing My Daydreams

I've been musing about how lazy I've become recently. My home is in serious need of dusting. Actually, that's an understatement. The coffee table looks like it was rolled across the Outback by a strong wind and became deposited in an arroyo, face down. Putting off the vacuuming for almost three weeks illustrates that point, and newspapers piled up in a corner positively lithographs it. And, as uncomfortable as I am about the clutter, I became curious about the value of some of the things I needed to toss out. I wasn't interested in monetary value. Rather, I wondered how usable this stuff was.

This issue sparked an idea: some of the items I need to discard (a fancy way of saying trek my big butt down the hill to the dumpster) could potentially save my life in rare, but entirely plausible, circumstances.

Take the many old soda bottles which have now encircled the waste basket by my computer stand. Yes, I've cut out almost all sodas, but I've held on to these. I'm not quite sure why. I imagine that if I were to lash them together I could float safely across Lake Ontario. Ah, but what any non-motorized and non-oared water craft needs is a sail. Not a problem. Turning my head around, I espy both a Glad trash bag and a broom handle. In no time at all I'm sure I could make it to Toronto on the U.S.S. Cheapskate.

And the questions people would ask once I landed! "How many  shoelaces did you use to tie all of those bottles together?" would be posed to me as we led a parade under the "Canada Welcomes Rob" banner stretched graciously across the dock. "Are those Docker shoelaces?" "I hope those bottles didn't contain Diet Pepsi. The formaldehyde content could have eaten its way through those bottles and poisoned the walleye pike!" Perhaps the toughest query, "Did you come to Canada just to take out your disposables?", would be answered, diplomatically, that my main purpose was self-preservation. But yes, I'd allow, because the dumpsters at my apartment are filled with orange rinds, milk cartons, untold pounds of cat litter, and the mattress Jose tossed in there following a visit from Sears. I needed to get away from the dumpsters long enough, ironically, to take out the trash.

Speaking of the newspapers aforementioned, it's a cinch that I'd have reading material on deck (that's what we sailors call being on board). The Roanoke times has an excellent Extra Section. Filled with comic strips and various puzzles, I'd be on Danforth Avenue long before I could figure out what went wrong with my attempt to solve the Sudoku. How did I end up with four nines in the third column? That puzzle is even a pain in my daydreams.

I apologize for going Walter Mitty on the reader, but is there anything on this planet more mundane than breaking out the Hoover and the Endust every seven days? I believe that any job, no matter how dull, can be improved upon with a little forethought and dedication. Anyone can bag garbage, but how many can sail it across the choppy waters of the Great Lakes?

In all, I managed to clean my apartment to almost boot camp cleanliness, which would have prompted another daydream were it not for unpleasant memories of getting yelled at for failing to properly fold my BVDs into perfect six inch squares. Otherwise, it would have been interesting.

Running my garbage through an obstacle course en route to the dumpster would have been quite a feat.







 

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