Rant #1,742: Garbage

That's right.

What better topic to talk about on a steamy Friday in August than garbage?

It stinks, and it stinks worse in the summer.

We all generate garbage.

No matter how clean we are, and how clean we keep our homes, we generate garbage ... tons of it.

I don't know if any studies have been done on how much garbage a single person generates in their lifetime, but I bet it is tons.

Just think about the newspapers you get rid of, or even the boxes of tissues you throw out when the box is all used up.

It's all garbage.

I did the garbage this morning for what feels like the 1,580,750,899th time in my house, and it's all the same things--newspapers, paper plates, toilet tissue rolls, napkins, tissues--that have always been in our garbage.

Some garbage can live new lives as other products, some garbage hurts the environment, and some garbage is really, just garbage, not helping anyone in any way, but it still has to be gotten rid of.

I remember as a kid, when I lived in Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, garbage was something of an adventure.

Each building had its own incinerator, and we would gather up our garbage, bring it into the hall, and lug it to the door that opened to the incinerator chute. We would open the chute and shove our garbage down that chute, and it was almost a fun thing to do ... especially when the incinerator was in the process of burning garbage. You would see the flames go up as you pushed your junk into the chute.

It was kind of fun.

Now, I just lug it out to the curb, and wait for the sanitation trucks to come and pick it up, on their appointed days to take our garbage away from us.

No fun, and I guess there is a reason they call it "refuse."

Today, we use heavy plastic garbage pails, but I remember when we used those metal pails, which were a pain in the neck to haul back and forth.

And heaven forbid you hit one in the middle of the street with your car, guaranteed your car would be more damaged than the pail ever would be.

Whatever the receptacle being used, garbage is a chore I hate doing, but if it is not done, your abode turns into the very garbage you should be getting rid of.

Funny, some people throw away things that they consider to be garbage that really isn't. How many times have we heard that treasures have been found in someone's garbage?

Also, sometimes secrets are contained in that garbage, and oftentimes those secrets are unearthed by people who dare to get to the crux of the situation by looking through someone's trash.

People also lose things in the garbage, like wedding rings, and sometimes, people have to sift through the garbage to find these items.

But our garbage here is just that, pure garbage, and after I am done writing this, I will cart our garbage off to the curb.

Yes, today's Rant is garbage, and I won't take offense if you call this entry garbage, either, because that is precisely what it is.

Speak to you again on Monday, and I am sure that from now until then, I will be hauling more garbage out to the curb.

It is an act that I can't refuse.