Trashing the Place

Hubby and I are getting ready to move out of our Chicago condo, after 12 years. I was the child of a 1960’s and 70’s corporate nomad. I think I know all about moving. But the thing about moving is that it requires hundreds of micro-decisions. Keep? Donate? Dispose? I am freaking exhausted. I am exhausted despite having the luxury of days on end to spend on packing, uninterrupted by professional demands, or as it was for my mom during my childhood, the demands of small children spinning around my orbit.

I am guided in my travails by the generosity of others. The guy we bought this place from left behind a lot of handy things… the covered waste baskets in the bathrooms, wonderful for keeping pets out, the clock he probably just forgot, but served us for a decade before it died. And the generosity of the guy who sold us our new Chicago suburban outpost, who also left us waste baskets, including the set that live under the sink there, and some furniture which made it possible for us to “camp out” in style there while we waited for the condo to sell.

So, this leaves the question of the condo kitchen waste disposal unit. We inherited a cheap rubbermaid kitchen trash can. (it made me laugh, because the man who owned this place before us really liked NICE things, but we all have our cheap-out points!) Jim hated it. He kinda fell in love with this (PRICEY, to my mind) unit we saw back when Bed, Bath and Beyond had actual stores. Our building, in 2011, had just recently embraced recycling. And this thing had two compartments, one for trash, one for recycling. It is something of a relic of its time in that the recycling is a lot smaller than the trash, and I don’t know what your experience is, but for us, these days, the divide is about 50/50.

I gave him this trash can for Christmas the year we bought this place. I put a bow on it, and everything! It was sort of a vote of confidence – yes, we can really pull this second place thing off, yes, we will get our youngest through college. Yes, we can provide housing for our med student and our eldest, who has just recently been laid off. Yes, this thing is stupid expensive, but it is pretty and looks nice in this little niche and yes, I love you.

Because of the aforementioned increase in our recycling waste, the receptacle we actually USE here for recycling is the paper bag you see. Because nothing feels dumber than putting an un-recyclable plastic trash bag full of recycling in the the recycling bin.

We don’t actually have a good place for this thing in the new home. The plastic baskets under the sink there work pretty well. I guess we could use it in the basement when we entertain? And it’s not all that practical here any more. But it is pretty. I’m leaning towards leaving it for the young couple moving in. They are just a little older than our kids. And I think maybe they would like it. And it fits perfectly!