22 November 2011
Spent
the day yesterday at Ena’s (Al’s mother who died about 6 mths ago) clearing out
stuff to get the house ready for renovation. We have gone to start this quite a
few times but it’s not a very pleasant job and quite upsetting for Al so we
have kept putting it off.
I finally got into it yesterday and got a fair bit done and now am on a role so will keep going until it’s finished. Biggest pain is taking all the stuff to the dump, as everything has to be recycled these days, although I am highly sceptical as to what happens to it all and am not convinced it doesn’t all end up in the same land fill any way.
Had to take the stuff to the ‘Super Dump’ in Sydenham which recycles absolutely everything. It is huge and has separate skips all over the place for various things and is a real pain if you have a car full of random stuff. As soon as you enter the staff pounces on you and ask what you have and watch like a hawk to make sure you do your civic duty and separate it all out. I have learnt to bring items of single categories or at least group stuff in the car and it reminded me of the first time I went there a few years back.
We had had a party in the house and filled bin bags with all the mess you get from that like cans and bottles and uneaten food. I went to my usual dump only to find a closed sign directing me to the then brand new ‘Super Dump’ at the Holywood Road. Not a problem I thought and made my way there and as soon as I drove in I was approached by a herd of florescent jacketed little hitlers all full of new job enthusiasm and a serious dose of jobs worthness.
“What’s in the bags?” one of them asked.
” Just general rubbish” I smilingly replied.
“No bottles or cans? Anything like that has to be separated out.” Was the unsmiling reply.
“Just the usual household crap mate. Where should I put it” say’s me hoping this asshole would just piss off and leave me alone.
“Stick it in number 2” he says which is right behind where he and his mates are standing.
I jump out of the car and open the back and gingerly lift out the first bag being careful not to make any of the bottles clink thus drawing the attention of the recycling Gestapo. Two of them are actually standing with their arms folded watching me and I take two paces toward the skip when the nightmare of nightmares in this situation happens and the bottom falls out of the fucking bag.
Bottles, cans and rotting food fall at my feet and the bottles roll off in all directions. The place had been a hive of activity but suddenly there is total silence except the sound of my bottles rolling across the tarmac. Staff and punters stop what they are doing and all eyes are on me, the man who had not only dared not to recycle but had lied and had been caught.
Yes indeed caught by the proverbial balls and now stuck in no man’s land with a pile of crap at my feet and two similarly loaded bags behind me. Not a word was spoken. The staff looked at me with raised eyebrows and the other punters looked with a mixture of respect and pity. Suicide was not an option as Al was expecting me home for breakfast so I simply started picking up the bottles and asked politely where they should go.
I then had to go through the humiliating process of scraping up the food with my hands and opening both my other bags and separating all the various items to the satisfaction of my hosts. I will remember it until my dying day and I recall just turning off my humiliation sensors as I went through the process supervised by what seemed like the entire staff of the place who had just made the biggest bust of their short careers.
The only redeeming thing about the whole sorry episode is that while I was being sacrificed the rest of the unsupervised punters were chucking everything and anything in the ‘non recyclable’ skip behind the bastards backs. I therefore declare myself a martyr to the cause………………..
I finally got into it yesterday and got a fair bit done and now am on a role so will keep going until it’s finished. Biggest pain is taking all the stuff to the dump, as everything has to be recycled these days, although I am highly sceptical as to what happens to it all and am not convinced it doesn’t all end up in the same land fill any way.
Had to take the stuff to the ‘Super Dump’ in Sydenham which recycles absolutely everything. It is huge and has separate skips all over the place for various things and is a real pain if you have a car full of random stuff. As soon as you enter the staff pounces on you and ask what you have and watch like a hawk to make sure you do your civic duty and separate it all out. I have learnt to bring items of single categories or at least group stuff in the car and it reminded me of the first time I went there a few years back.
We had had a party in the house and filled bin bags with all the mess you get from that like cans and bottles and uneaten food. I went to my usual dump only to find a closed sign directing me to the then brand new ‘Super Dump’ at the Holywood Road. Not a problem I thought and made my way there and as soon as I drove in I was approached by a herd of florescent jacketed little hitlers all full of new job enthusiasm and a serious dose of jobs worthness.
“What’s in the bags?” one of them asked.
” Just general rubbish” I smilingly replied.
“No bottles or cans? Anything like that has to be separated out.” Was the unsmiling reply.
“Just the usual household crap mate. Where should I put it” say’s me hoping this asshole would just piss off and leave me alone.
“Stick it in number 2” he says which is right behind where he and his mates are standing.
I jump out of the car and open the back and gingerly lift out the first bag being careful not to make any of the bottles clink thus drawing the attention of the recycling Gestapo. Two of them are actually standing with their arms folded watching me and I take two paces toward the skip when the nightmare of nightmares in this situation happens and the bottom falls out of the fucking bag.
Bottles, cans and rotting food fall at my feet and the bottles roll off in all directions. The place had been a hive of activity but suddenly there is total silence except the sound of my bottles rolling across the tarmac. Staff and punters stop what they are doing and all eyes are on me, the man who had not only dared not to recycle but had lied and had been caught.
Yes indeed caught by the proverbial balls and now stuck in no man’s land with a pile of crap at my feet and two similarly loaded bags behind me. Not a word was spoken. The staff looked at me with raised eyebrows and the other punters looked with a mixture of respect and pity. Suicide was not an option as Al was expecting me home for breakfast so I simply started picking up the bottles and asked politely where they should go.
I then had to go through the humiliating process of scraping up the food with my hands and opening both my other bags and separating all the various items to the satisfaction of my hosts. I will remember it until my dying day and I recall just turning off my humiliation sensors as I went through the process supervised by what seemed like the entire staff of the place who had just made the biggest bust of their short careers.
The only redeeming thing about the whole sorry episode is that while I was being sacrificed the rest of the unsupervised punters were chucking everything and anything in the ‘non recyclable’ skip behind the bastards backs. I therefore declare myself a martyr to the cause………………..
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