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By Keith, September 2, 2010 7:02 pm

This evening, as the outside air temperature was beginning to drop, I opened my bedroom window to let the breeze blow through and cool off my computers.  While re-watching season 1 of The Big Bang Theory, movement outside my window caught my attention.  To my dismay and mild discomfort, I saw two young men dressed in dress slacks, white short sleeve shirts, ties, and black backpacks.  They were just sort of loitering in my next door neighbor’s back yard.

As if the presence of what appeared to be two Mormon mental cases (offense intended) outside my window was not disturbing enough, I saw no sign of anyone else with them.  So they were just standing around observing things as if they were from another planet.  One of them picked up a fist sized stone that some higher power had piled around the base of a tree, looked at it very closely, no doubt trying to determine god’s purpose for it, before dropping it back on the pile.  Meanwhile, the other one was analyzing the bark on a nearby tree and apparently wondering why tree skin is rough to the touch, but human skin is not.

The whole time these two nut jobs were in the yard next door, I never saw anyone else with them, so why were they hanging out there?  Were they shirking their evangelical duties?  Didn’t they know that their omniscient god (who already knows who will and won’t have believed in her) can see them through leaves?

Whatever their reason for being there, they creeped me out a little.  Part of me feared that once they had their fill of god’s glorious creation, i.e. rocks and tree bark, they might ring my doorbell next.  Fortunately, they soon left to find more interesting inanimate objects to investigate elsewhere.  Weirdos!

Creepy Weirdos

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By Keith, August 30, 2010 11:46 pm

This morning after work, I popped into Menards to check whether they had lids for their recycling bins.  It had been almost a week to the day since the last time I had looked, so I thought there was a chance that their high tech inventory management system might have recognized that the number of recycling bins exceeded the number of lids for recycling bins by 2.  As of this morning, Menards still does not have lids for their smaller size recycling bins.  They do, however, have some rather large blue bins with lids, but that’s not what I want.

At Lowes, they have quite a selection of rubbish bins.  At the far end of the same isle, they have a massive selection of stackable plastic containers and lids, but none of them seem quite right for recycling.  I left Lowes a little depressed because I seem to live in a small city with very poor selection of anything, really.

To make a long story a bit shorter, I ended up ordering an 18 gallon plastic Rubbermaid recycling bin from Amazon.com.  Although I was dissatisfied with the description of the product, because it did not specify whether or not this “stackable” bin ships with or without a lid, I decided I would not reward the pathetically understocked Menards or Lowes.

It’s a catch-22 for local stores.  People don’t shop there, because they lack selection, and they have a poor selection of stock, because nobody shops there.  I know this is an over-simplification, but I think you get my meaning.  The funny thing about this purchase is that I’ll be recycling the box in which my recycle bin arrives by breaking it down and putting it inside my new recycle bin.

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By Keith, August 29, 2010 11:49 am

Here in the microtropolis of Defiance, Ohio, we have a fairly good curbside recycling program.  On normal garbage collection days, a recycling truck also collects glass, cardboard and plastic recyclables that can be placed in a recycling bin by the road.  I used to wonder why more people don’t recycle, but not any more.  Recently, the answer has become clear to me.

At some point this spring, I became a little lazy and stopped sorting through my rubbish to set aside recyclables.  This was probably about the same time as my landlord removed the recycling bin from in front of my apartment.  It used to sit just beside the steps to my front door.  Maybe he found the bright green bin unsightly or something.  I don’t know, and I didn’t ask.  The recycling bin belonged to my landlord, so I didn’t question why he did it.

I also did not run right out to the store and replace my recycling bin.  Instead, I allowed myself to become one of the lazy thoughtless masses who mindlessly chuck their massive black bags of waste by the road where they disappear to who knows where.  I rationalized that since I’m only one person living alone, I do not really make very much trash.  In fact, I often only put out 1 bag every 2 weeks.  How much landfill space am I actually wasting by not sorting my rubbish?  The utter ridiculousness of this line of reasoning becomes clear when you imagine everyone else in every city in the world thinking this same thought.

But if I had gone right out to a store to buy a new recycling bin, where in Defiance would I find one?  My first thought was Menards.  They seem to have a lot of buckets and bins and things.  It just so happens that last week, I stopped in at Menards to find one.  Guess what I found!  They had 2 nice blue recycling bins for sale at about $12, however, they had no lids which are included in the price of the bin.

Tomorrow morning after work I’ll check at Lowe’s and report back.