Void Vernacular

invalid inneundo

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

hot dumpster heat

i knew there was a reason i avoided cleaning up. somewhere in my bones i knew it was the wrong thing to do... cleaning up only ends in tears and dumpster crawls - remember that kiddies!

recently i found myself in a tidy-up frenzy, throwing things out left, right and centre. those of you who know me will know how extremely unusual that is for me given my tendency to hoard, keep or "collect" anything and everything. i have spoken previously of my habit of keeping everything so i hope you appreciate the rarity of this occurrence. i used to put this down to laziness but now i know that the reason i have avoided cleaning and tidying all these years is because intuitively i knew it was wrong.

last week my boyfriend, dave, generously bought me a ticket to hot hot heat on the understanding i would pay him back when my impoverished state would allow. i'm not a die hard fan but interested enough to shell out $45 to see them...

i'm sure the quicker-witted of you are beginning to see how this story may go.

it would appear that in my cleanliness frenzy i disposed of said hot hot heat tickets.
apparently the space in our house for old bills is also the space for concert tickets - who knew?
i'll tell you who didn't fucking know.... me.

we live in a big apartment block and therefore are lucky enough to have one of those chutes you just throw the rubbish in and never have to think about again. the rubbish goes down a big slippery slide down to the bottom floor and we never have to think about it again. this system works well for me, until something is thrown out by accident.

this is not the first time i have been robbed by the clean-up fairy.

on my 21st birthday i had a soiree on my rooftop with friends and family and most importantly presents! when it began to cloud over and rain, (as it does every year on my birthday despite the fact my birthday is right in the middle of spring) we all decided to go down stairs to continue the festivities. being the responsible people we are, and still mostly sober, we thought we'd do a quick clean up. i delighted in showing everybody the garbage chute and how easily we were able to dispose of our rubbish, and so dispose we did.

little did i know at the time that someone was mistakenly disposing of my presents! MY PRESENTS! presents are my favourite thing and they make the passing of each year acceptable to me. i can ignore my ever increasing age when each birthday brings presents. i love presents!

and so when this accidental disposal came to my attention it is fair to say i was suitably upset (if being suitably upset can include a lot of foot stomping and hungover crying). after the tears dried and my foot became sore from too much stomping i became determined to recover these lost possessions which i barely had time enough to get to know before they were tragically ripped from my ownership. and so donning rubber gloves i trudged down to the bottom floor of my building and spent the next hour in a dumpster sifting through the rubbish of the building.
i was on a dumpster crawl.
rotten food, off milk... they deterred me not. i sifted and sifted until finally, sadly i had to admit defeat. it appeared that my presents had been taken away by the garbage truck before i had a chance to save them and bring them to their rightful home.

well this week saw me once again, in the dumpster. instead of looking for a bag of goodies i was looking for two pieces of paper in a bag of my own rubbish. it seems the garbage room has acquired a few sifting tools since my last visit and so dave and i sifted, ploughed and dug through the waste of the building. it was an eventful dumpster crawl as we tried to avoid the occasional incoming bag of rubbish hurtling wildly down the chute and dave very narrowly escaped what would have been a very dirty and painful injury to the face, had i actually whacked him with the metal claw thing i was digging through the rubbish with, as i very nearly did. a time was had by all.

unfortunately my second dumpster crawl was as fruitless as the first. beaten to it by the bloody garbage truck again - those bastards.

and so dave , the understanding and generous soul he is bought the tickets again. the box-office lady recognised him from his first purchase and queried as to why he was buying more tickets. when he relayed the tragic tale to her, she asked him if i was still his girlfriend in light of the recent occurrences... yes he replied.

and so now i owe dave not just for the one ticket he generously paid for but for three. this brings my total ticket cost to $135! hot hot heat better be fucking shit hot, that's all i'm saying.

anyway the lesson to be learnt here is to never tidy up. it is wrong and will only end in tears and/or dumpster crawls. learn from my mistake friends... learn from my mistakes.