trash or trashures

     My life changed drastically when I married a woman with a 3 year old daughter and a 10 year old son. I was ill prepared for the scope of work that is fatherhood. I foolishly believed I understood how my life would change. I did not think much of it until we moved from the house she and her ex-husband had bought to the first house she and I bought together. I found out what baggage was. And I am not talking about the emotional or psychological type. I am talking about baggage. And boxes. And tubs. And more.

     I had few possessions when we married, as I was fresh off a stint as a traveling musician/carpenter. I moved from living in my van and or my sailboat into her house. I had construction tools, guitars and clothes. And, yes, I did have the Sea Monkey, but that is a story for another day.
     It is amazing how much stuff you acquire when you have more space. Soon, however, the space is used up. We live in a consumer driven world. Buy, use, and throw out, or take to goodwill. Throw out is almost like taking things to Goodwill. I call these items trashures. As defined by Bruce’s Dictionary of made-up Phrases for the Purpose of Blogging. A trashure is: “Any item that could and maybe should be thrown away, but is instead donated to a second hand store, a such as Goodwill etc.” The landfill has trash, Goodwill has trashures. One mans trash is another mans trashure. Right? EXACTLY RIGHT!!
     Well, they might as well be the same thing. Once items are there, they are gone forever. I noticed recently that nearly the same sign is posted at the landfill as at Goodwill. Do not remove items from the drop off spot. Removing stuff from either place is punishable to the fullest extent of the law.
     I can understand the idea of taking a cool item from goodwill, but the landfill? I admit that there are times when I have a hard time throwing out stuff. I am good at getting rid of stuff that belongs to my wife and kids. Just ask them, they will concur. Every time we move I hear “what happened to …..” I am always guilty until proven innocent. You would think just because I did throw out some items that appeared to be trash to me, one time when we moved, I am suddenly the prime suspect. However, I am also a pack rat. Ironic, huh?
     Items in plastic bags look like trash to me. I use a lot of Home Depot, Menards, and Lowe’s bags for my job for small trash items. By the way, Menards bags are far superior as far as strength, to the other two. My wife uses bags as some sort of odd organizational system. We had not been married long when I discovered this quirk. Er, I mean endearing quality.
     When we went to Las Vegas on our honeymoon I purchased a tiger striped jacket for my wife. It was cool. It was not cheap. She really liked it. At least that is what she told me. It was pretty cool. She looked good in it.
     I was going to Goodwill. My wife asked me to take some items in a bag, out of my her car, to Goodwill. She told me the bag was in the back seat of the truck. I grabbed a bag off the seat. I ran off to goodwill. I dropped the bag and the other trashures. My wife thanked me for dropping off the trashures. Then she went to the truck to get her jacket. It wasn’t there. It was not pretty. I grabbed the wrong bag. I toyed with the idea of seeing to what extent of the law they would punish me. I guess she really did like that jacket.

Just Another Day In Paradise