Tidy Trash

I have no statistical evidence to back this up but I believe roughly 85% of things which are near their breaking point will hang on until winter and break then. It could be that this is just my perception, but there are valid points you could make if you felt like talking yourself into it. For example, you could argue it is because the items we use indoors get more use when we are trapped inside by snow and sub-zero temperatures and the increased wear and tear is just too much. I know that the batteries in my remote certainly got a workout during the blizzard. Meanwhile, the outdoor items are breaking simply because they sat for long periods of time before suddenly being frequently called upon and now can't handle the harsher conditions even though that is what they were made for. I've certainly never snapped a shovel in the spring, but have done it multiple times during past winters. Then again, it could just be that it seems like more things are breaking because all I want to do is get inside and every extra minute spent trying to get the snowblower to start feels like an hour. The point is that I feel like if something has a weakness, Old Man Winter is going to find it and expose it to the world.

The other day I was out clearing some snow and thought I may have heard a ripping noise. I was concerned it was my very nice winter coat, but once I was inside I couldn't find any tears. Relieved, I assumed it was in my head and went back to doing my various indoor activities. That was when someone else pointed out to me that I had a fairly large hole in my jeans. Apparently the strain of shoveling yet again was simply too much for these jeans to bear and they had ripped from just below the back right pocket in a straight line across to the inseam. At first I thought about simply sewing the hole closed. After all, I have become quite good at repairing small rips in my shirts and no one being any the wiser. However, repairs to my jeans have not been as successful. That means that I could technically fix them but I could never again wear them out in public and instead they would have to make a fine pair of "working around the house" pants. As you may know, I have a formula when it comes to stuff like this - it's all about the cost of replacing an item compared to how hard it will be to fix it divided by the time repairing it will take. Since these were just a cheap pair of jeans that never really fit all that well to begin with and I already have plenty of working around the house pants compared to how much working around the house I actually do, I decided to forget it and throw them away. For about an hour I thought about being very environmentally friendly and donating them to an organization which turns ripped denim into household insulation, but the company is located in Arizona and I would have to ship the jeans to them, which seems like more of a hassle than it is worth. Ultimately, I found myself back to the point of just throwing the ripped jeans out. What's weird is that for some reason I felt like I had to wash them one last time before I did.

I understand washing a piece of clothing you plan to donate because not only is that good manners to make sure anything you give away is in solid working order, it saves the charity a step and gives the people who may need the clothes just a little bit of comfort knowing that you cared enough about them to not give them something which has been in the back of your closet for a decade and smells like mothballs. However, that is not the case here. This is just my insane need to feel like I have nice garbage, even though no one is ever going to see it. When I was a kid trash day would bring out all sorts of folks who would go from street to street, inspecting what people had placed at the curb and if they thought the item had any kind of value they would take it away. Honestly, the chances a couch you put on on Sunday night would still be there on Monday morning were slim. But since my town belongs to the cult of the green trash barrels and only allows you to throw away certain items those people have pretty much vanished. And even if there were people going through my trash looking for something of value, at that moment do they really have the right to judge how nice the stuff I am throwing away really is? I thought beggars weren't allowed to be choosers.

The only good part of this moment was that I knew what I was doing was stupid. I think everyone is crazy to some degree, the only thing separating people who are full-blown crazy from the people who aren't is that the non-crazy people will take a step back in the middle of a crazy act to tell themselves how stupid they are being. Self-awareness makes all the difference. Even as I was putting the ripped jeans in the washing machine I felt like kind of an idiot. Not only were they not that dirty to begin with, they were coming out of the dryer and going directly into the trash, so what was the point? (I would say it as stupid as rinsing paper plates before you threw them away but, yeah, I do that too. Guards against raccoons.) Perhaps I thought that just in case someone felt like rescuing and repairing them they would have one fewer item on the to-do list. The more likely thing going in my head is that, as I learned a few years ago when my family was having its first (and to this date, last) yard sale, people tend to value their stuff, even the things they no longer want, a lot more than a total stranger would. Admittedly, I don't expect to see anyone digging out my old jeans come trash day this week, but if they do I hope they are comforted by the fact they should still smell like a mountain breeze.