Tuesday mornings. Make coffee, feed the cats, take out the trash. Sometimes its garbage. Today it was trash. The remains of the old pool liner and debris from the workroom took up a lot of space. I feel bad it’s going to the landfill, but those are the choices someone else made a long time ago. I also used the last of the 30-gallon trash bags. They fit nicely, but, and this is a big one, when you pull the full bag out of its collection receptacle it is full, which means no slack to tie it up. I am now back to my 33-gallon bags.

I remember when I first found the 30-gallon bags. I was proud of myself. They fit nicely as a liner in the kitchen trash receptacle. No sloppy overhang. But the first time I pulled one out, full, I knew I’d made a mistake. There was no draw string, nor was there extra give. It was just a full bag, which seems like the objective, until you realize you like to tie them up before you haul them to the big can outside. It was like a bad haircut. I just had to live with it while it grew out and I used up all the bags. That’s today. Next Tuesday I’ll haul this last one out. Seems like forever.

I wonder why I didn’t just throw them away when I realized my mistake? Seems logical. They’re inexpensive. I guess I’m permanently in a waste-not, want-not mode. I’d bought them. Now I needed to use them. If there were 20 bags in the box, which is how many are in the new box, that means it took me about five months to get rid of them. That’s a commitment folks, I’m not sure it speaks well for me. Although, a little stoicism never hurt anyone, and it was a useful and not particularly onerous lesson. And now you know, and you can avoid my mistake.