Sometimes, when people come over to our house, I like to take them on a tour of all the artwork we have on display. Invariably, a particular piece in our spare room always draws the same question.
“Oh, so does one of you paint?”
Really, I should just answer, “Yep! Now, moving on.”
That would be the safest course of action.
However, since I am honest to a fault, I always reply, “No, Taylor got that out of a dumpster his freshman year, and when we moved upstairs, I asked him to frame it so that we could hang it in this room.”
Not surprisingly, this explanation usually elicits a surprised and/or concerned expression in our company. Thankfully, however, most people are not bold enough to ask the obvious follow-up question:
“So… what other trash do you have in this house?”
Because most people… don’t *actually* want to know.
My husband loves to rescue things from the trash, and even if I’m embarrassed about it, I hate to see something useful go to waste. So, when Taylor brings home the “trash treasure”, it usually stays.
[Note: Confer Bah-Humburglary, which I highly recommend if you haven’t yet read.]
So… what other trash *do* we have in our house? Well, right now, I’m typing this at my kitchen table, which rests on a dumpster carpet. On the wall to my right are two dumpster cross-stitch art pieces. A few minutes ago, I did laundry with dumpster Tide. And that’s just off the top of my head.
Notably, all those garbage acquisitions have been through multiple bouts of decontamination, and these days, I barely even remember to be icked. (After all, there are *significantly* ickier aspects of my life as a toddler mom.) The trash treasures integrate into our house pretty seamlessly.
I’m actually not sure when Taylor *officially* became a dumpster diver, although I do know that he was pretty involved with Freecycle before we met. He’s seemingly always had a little freegan in him. But, fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), he found a willing accomplice in me.
To be clear — I didn’t grow up getting things out of trash bins… but I did do my utmost to prevent them from going in, in the first place. I drove my mother crazy with my unwillingness to discard anything that might possibly be of future use. Our conversations usually went like this….
Mom: “Holly, what is this?”
Ten-year-old Holly: “That’s the top of an acorn!”
Mom: “Yes, I can see that. I’m sorry, what I meant was, why do you still have this?”
Holly: “Because I might use it as the hat for a little fairy doll someday!”
Mom: <pause> “One day, they’re going to film you and put you on that show on TLC.”
As a point of personal pride, I have not yet been filmed for Hoarding: Buried Alive. However, I am still loath to throw away anything that could possibly, maybe still have some life left in it. Of the three quilts I’ve crafted, the fabric of all three was sourced from old clothes and sheets. And I have plans for more! Several boxes of ripped/stained clothes languish in my basement, just waiting for me to have the free time to transform unusable trash into… usable trash. (I’m not the most talented quilter.)
All of this is to say that — for instance — when Taylor brought home a dumpster chair in pretty good condition, I simply wiped it down, strapped on a toddler seat, and turned it into Bo’s first highchair.
[Note: You might have even see this chair. It’s the black one in the final two pictures of If You Give a Kid a [Quinoa-Spinach-Apple] Meatball….]
That chair, like most of our big furniture finds, came from the Colorado School of Mines dumpsters. At the end of every school year, Mines students move out en masse and flood the campus garbage bins with freegan gold. With an insouciance that still shocks me, students of my alma mater continue to throw away everything from storage bins to towels to shampoo to an unopened pound of Yellow No. 5 Lake. (That last one was unusual even by Mines dumpster standards.)
Up until recently, this annual rubbish raid was our only regular source of useful trash and my main source of laundry detergent. (Literally. I’ve only *purchased* laundry detergent once in the past two years.)
But, then Taylor started to get a bit bolder: he started to salvage food, too.
Fun fact: Did you know that, at the close of each business day, Panera donates countless day-old baked goods to charities through its Day-End Dough-Nation program?
Except sometimes, it *doesn’t*.
I found this out one Thursday night several months ago, while I was still pregnant with Australis. Borealis slept at home under the care of our roommates, so Taylor and I took the opportunity to run through the Chick-Fil-A drive-through after Bible study. After receiving the milkshake we had ordered, Taylor parked so that we could leisurely enjoy our treat.
And then, as we watched, a Panera employee left the building across the street carrying a large, opaque bag. He cavalierly tossed it into the dumpster, hopped in his car, and drove away.
Taylor: <grunts hopefully>
“Ugh, fine,” I conceded.
We drove over to the Panera dumpster, and Taylor plucked the bag from the bin it had so recently entered. Indeed, the sack contained a multitude of pastries, bagels, and breads. We brought it home and ate 1000% of our daily quota of baked goods for the next week.
That single occasion set in motion events that have led our family to this point: the point where we eat food out of the trash.
Now, if you know us personally, this latest information isn’t too surprising. I feel like we generally come across as pretty scuzzy people already, so this additional revelation shouldn’t really affect your opinion.
Nevertheless, it’s true. My husband, who is a gainfully employed engineer, has a mild addiction to dumpster diving, and I have readily enabled his fixation. Usually, he ventures solo out into the vast world of usable trash, but sometimes, he’ll see an especially appealing bin while we’re out and about as a family. At those times, we’re all privy to the rubbish reclamation — except, notably, the kids and I stay in the car.
Lately, however, I’ve been feeling like I wasn’t pulling my dumpster diving weight. Granted, I certainly work to keep the kids calm when Taylor is picking through garbage, but I never really got my hands dirty — literally or metaphorically. I just sorted through the winnings when we got home.
Last week, however, I finally got my opportunity.
Taylor, the kids, and I were taking the long way back from Chick-Fil-A, where we had picked up drive-through. (We’ve been doing our best with “social distancing”, but some things are harder to give up than others… and Chick-Fil-A is one of those things.) As we passed Mines, Taylor suddenly straightened in his seat.
“Babe. Look.”
I followed my husband’s line of sight. He had seen the latest addition to the Mines landscape: a large roll-off dumpster in one of the residence hall parking lots.
Coronavirus had prompted Mines to switch entirely to online classes, and Mines had subsequently offered a partial housing refund to any first years who moved out of the dorms early. As a collective group, the freshmen were leaving Mines.
Taylor glanced over at me pleadingly, but I needed no convincing. Our best dumpster finds come from the typically-affluent and sometimes-wasteful students of Mines.
“Oh, definitely,” I confirmed. “We’ll ask the roommates to watch Bo tonight.”
It was a matter of minutes to confirm that our roommates would listen for Bo after we put him down to bed. Since he almost never wakes before morning, it’s a pretty low-intensity babysitting job — one that they can do from their room in the basement, under Bo’s room. We are incredibly grateful for their willingness to let us get out of the house at night, because it really sucks to *pay* someone to watch your sleeping child.
After putting Bo to bed, we lingered several minutes to ensure that he was asleep. Then, Taylor gathered up a few supplies, and I got Australis into the carseat and out to the car. Taylor joined us moments later.
As soon as he sat down in the driver’s seat, Taylor sniffed and remarked, “I am positive there’s a poopie diaper in here.”
“There is not!” I bristled. “That’s just how my car smells.”
Taylor: <grunts disbelievingly>
We drove down the hill and onto the Colorado School of Mines campus. Australis, uncharacteristically, cried for the entirety of our two-minute drive.
Taylor pulled into a “Service Vehicles Only” spot, then turned to me with an eyebrow raised. “Well, something’s obviously wrong. She’s not our child who cries without reason.”
I sighed. “True. Will you get her so I can nurse?”
I struggled out of my sweatshirt while Taylor walked around the car to retrieve our daughter. She had ceased crying as soon as we parked, but I discovered the reason for her earlier distress immediately upon receiving her.
“Oh, man, Taylor, did you not notice the awful blowout!?”
Taylor looked at the large, mustardy stain on her *white* pajamas. “Oh. Huh. I guess I didn’t.”
“Ughhhhhhhh. Ok, will you grab the diaper bag?”
Still holding my poopie baby at arm’s length, I awkwardly rose from the car and walked around to the trunk, which Taylor had just opened. He unzipped the diaper bag and pulled out a rolled-up diaper. “Here’s that dirty diaper I was smelling.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you want to hear, ‘You were right?’”
Taylor shrugged, then stepped back and magnanimously gestured to the trunk.
“Um, aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked.
“You want me to put the mat down? It’s not like we’re putting her on the ground — just use the trunk.”
I wrinkled my nose. “The trunk is gross! Look at all the dirt in there!”
Taylor: <grunts pointedly>
“Yes, I know that it’s my car, so the dirt is my responsibility and probably my fault too. But will you please put the mat down?”
Taylor grudgingly complied, and I set Australis down. With trepidation, I unzipped her pajamas and discovered that the situation was as I expected: a complete poopie mess. Australis, of course, only giggled adorably.
“Taylor!” I cursed.
Taylor: <grunts in confusion>
“Ugh. Nevermind. Oh, actually, could you grab her extra change of clothes? I forgot to put it back in the diaper bag, but it’s in the front seat up where I sit.”
I started to remove the pajamas, then realized I’d need some form of containment for them. “Do we have a plastic bag?” I asked without looking up.
“Yeah, there’s one right here,” Taylor called back, and the direction from which his voice came caused me to glance up sharply.
“Why are you in the driver’s seat!?”
Taylor walked back to the trunk and tossed the plastic grocery bag down beside the changing mat. “Um, because you said, ‘front seat’, which is the driver’s seat, and also, you sit in the driver’s seat when I’m not with you. Obviously, you just weren’t clear enough.”
“Why would I leave her change of clothes in the driver’s seat!? Like, what, it’ll just hang out below the brake pedal? Also, ‘front seat’ very commonly refers to the shotgun seat as well!”
Taylor: <grunts in annoyance>
“Seriously, go find it! I’m pretty sure it’s at the bottom of the passenger seat.”
Taylor trudged away, and I finally extricated Australis from her soiled PJs. As I was stuffing the garment into the plastic bag, Taylor’s muffled voice declared, “I don’t see it.”
I looked up again and groaned. “That’s because you’re behind the seat! What the heck, Taylor! Do you not listen to anything I say!?”
Taylor emerged from the backseat and straightened upright. “Well, you said ‘bottom of the seat’, so what was I supposed to think that meant other than ‘underneath the seat’?”
“Like, the bottom of the seat! The foot part of the front seat! This is not that hard! Are you Amelia Bedelia!?”
Taylor: <grunts condescendingly> “The foot part. Right.”
As my husband finally started searching in the correct seat, I undid Australis’s diaper and began to clean up the mess.
“Hurry up, babe!” I shouted. “She’s totally naked now!”
“It’s not here,” Taylor yelled back. “I’ve checked the whole front seat.”
“Well, then check the backseat!” I snapped. “I am 100% positive that it is in the car.”
Taylor circled around behind the driver’s seat — literally the only place in which he had not yet searched — and immediately announced, “Oh! Here it is! The Christmas ones.”
He tossed the extra set of jammies over the seat and into the trunk, where they landed on a still-naked Australis.
“Thanks,” I muttered. I opened the diaper bag to grab a diaper and discovered an empty pocket where the size 2s normally live.
“I feel like this is somehow your fault!” I flung at my husband, who had returned to the trunk.
He merely raised an eyebrow.
“Ok, obviously it’s not your fault. But can you go grab one of the spares? They’re in the thing — the dash thing. Up in the front seat. The dash… glove….”
I finally shouted, “Glove box!” as Taylor flicked a diaper into the trunk.
He smirked. “Aw, babe, you should have just called it ‘the knee part of the front seat’, and then I would have known exactly what you were talking about.”
“Mean!” I squealed. “You are so mean!”
He shrugged. “Only you think that. Everyone else thinks I’m nice.”
“That’s because they don’t know you,” I grumbled.
I got my chilly daughter diapered and then began the struggle of getting her into the spare pajamas… which were, admittedly, inappropriately themed.
“She looks like a bald little elf,” Taylor remarked of the Santa-patterned suit.
“Well, that’s why they’re the spare pajamas!” I shot back.
As I continued the clothing battle, Australis’s eyes found Taylor, and she gave him a big gummy grin.
“Well, at least she likes me,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “At least. Ok, I’ll have to nurse her to warm her up the rest of the way.”
We got back in the car, and I nursed Australis while Taylor caught up on Nextdoor.
“It sounds like there’s barely any milk left in the stores,” he said.
I grimaced. “We still have a couple half gallons of lactose-free left, but I don’t think I want to go try for any more. I’ve been feeding him my extra breastmilk, anyway.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m glad he’s been drinking that. I hope it’s helping with his immune system.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, babe. It sounds like if one of us gets corona, we all get it. So I’m not sure it’ll make a difference.”
Taylor: <grunts contemplatively>
Poor Australis had nursed hard and fallen asleep fast. I slid my nipple out of her latch and carefully pulled my shirt back down without waking her up.
“Will you come around and transfer her into the carseat?” I asked.
Taylor cracked one of the front windows and left the car running, then walked around to put Australis in her carseat. We both held our breath for a few seconds until it was clear that she was going to stay asleep.
I donned my sweatshirt, then hesitantly rose from my seat. I had realized that I possibly wanted to stay in the car after all. My nerves weren’t helped when Taylor handed me a pair of latex gloves.
Finally, it was time to *actually* start dumpster diving.
Now, if you’re like me, then you probably feel like the term “dumpster diving” connotes an immersive, totally disgusting process — and really, that’s what I was ready for. Or, at least, I thought I might be ready for it. Possibly.
I followed Taylor to the rungs on the side of the bin. He climbed up first, and I took a deep breath while I waited.
He heard my intake and glanced down. “You gonna be ok? You don’t have to do this, babe.”
I shook my head. “I just… I don’t know. I guess I’m just nervous. I don’t really know what to do here.”
Taylor nodded. “Ok. Climb up here and we’ll go through it together.”
I climbed to the top of the rungs and crouched on the dumpster’s edge, where I was finally afforded a good view of what we were dealing with.
The bin was entirely full. If we worked for a week, we might not be able to sift through it all. I couldn’t even imagine how much was wasted beneath the top layer of trash.
Taylor read my expression. “Yeah. We’ll barely scratch the surface. I guess a ton of people moved out today.”
A ton of people had moved out, and the profusion of usable goods made it clear that many of them had done so in haste. Under more leisurely circumstances, surely this dumpster would not have been so full.
When I was a first year, there were Goodwill donation bins set up in the residence halls during move-out. Maybe the policies have changed in the intervening years, or (more likely) Mines was scrambling to get organized in the wake of this rapid-onset pandemic, and the waste of all those usable goods was just really low on the priority list — which totally makes sense. This is a crazy time in history. The institutions gotta do what they can do.
But, it’s not just up to Mines to make sure that stuff ends up in the right place. Some amount of blame is rightfully leveled at the students.
Balancing on the edge of that dumpster, I was enraged at such wanton waste. Two full-sized towels and a fitted sheet lay within feet of where I crouched. Why do people throw away something that could be used again? Sure, maybe you think it’s weird for someone else to use your old towels or bedclothes — but Goodwill isn’t the only place to donate your cast-offs! Pet shelters are always in need of spare towels and blankets.
Likewise, there was an absurd amount of food waste. From my position, I could just barely reach an unopened box of Froot Loops. I slid the box toward me, picked it up, and searched for the expiration date.
“This is unreal,” I seethed. “This box doesn’t even expire for five months. This should be in a food bank!”
Taylor shrugged. “Yeah babe. This is kind of how it goes. Also, try to keep your voice down, because we don’t really wanna draw attention to ourselves.”
“Why are people like this!?” I hissed in response.
Taylor shrugged again. “A lot of them have to get on a plane to go home, so they can’t bring all their food or detergent or whatever. And, a lot of them don’t have cars, so even if they wanted to donate this stuff, they don’t have an easy way of doing it.”
I nodded slowly, and my anger started to subside. “And maybe with all the fear over corona, they don’t want to ride in a car with anyone that might have been exposed.”
Taylor smiled sadly. “So it ends up here. That’s why I love to do this.”
“Yeah. This is a difficult situation. I guess I can forgive the freshmen this once.”
“Seventy times seven, babe. That’s the spirit.”
I laughed, then gestured to the pile before us. “So… what do we do?”
Taylor shifted in his crouch to pluck a box of Girl Scout cookies from nearby. “Well, a lot of this stuff is actually where you can see it, so that makes it pretty easy. Besides that, any bag that’s really heavy probably has something good in it. And… I guess just try to look through the plastic, if you can.”
I swept my gaze over the sea of translucent black bags. I had a vague memory of similar sacks from my own time as a first year.
“Don’t these rip really easily?”
Taylor poked a finger at a nearby bag, which instantly split open. “Apparently.”
I nodded and summoned my courage. “Ok, well, good luck!”
Taylor: <grunts positively>
He shuffled off to the right, and I again surveyed the trash before me. I decided to rescue the towels and bedsheets first. I grabbed the bedclothes bundle and dropped it to the ground seven feet below, and repeated the action with the first towel. The second towel, however, was slightly beyond my fingertips.
Planting my feet firmly on the rim of the dumpster, I attempted to reach with one hand while supporting myself on a bag with the other, which worked well until the surface unexpectedly gave way beneath me.
Taylor glanced up at my shout. “Yeah, you gotta be discerning about where to put your weight. Maybe try to step on something, instead?”
“Thanks. You have the best advice,” I deadpanned.
After regaining my balance and repositioning atop the edge, I stepped into the pile and was finally able to reach the towel, which then joined its buddies on the ground.
I smiled to myself. “Already 1% of the way done!”
Taylor: <grunts inquisitively>
“Oh, nothing,” I answered. Then, as I found an old baking sheet, I amended, “Wait, actually — where do you put the stuff that you find?”
“I just put it on the edge of the dumpster, and then I walk around afterwards to gather everything I found.”
I assessed the baking sheet, then looked at the relatively narrow ledge upon which I would have to balance said sheet. Then, I dropped it to land on the towels below.
“That works, too,” Taylor chuckled.
A doormat that read Dorm Sweet Dorm joined my pile, as did a half-full bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo. Each new addition landed softly in the towel nest below me, and I grinned at my prodigious dumpster diving proficiency.
And then — crash! — I misjudged a toss, and sent a container of Dove body wash plummeting onto the baking sheet. The bottle burst open, and soap dripped out onto the dorm-mat. The racket and mess promptly obliterated my overconfidence.
“Hey, you know we’re trying to avoid attention, right?” Taylor stage-whispered.
“Huh? What about this do you feel like wasn’t subtle?”
Taylor’s laughter accompanied me back down the rungs and onto the ground. I did my best to wipe up the soap with one of the full-sized towels that I conveniently had at hand, and then I straightened the pile into some semblance of order. Clearly, Taylor’s method of collection was the superior way — although, he’d never hear that from me.
After dashing over to my car to ensure that Australis still slept soundly, I remounted the rungs and returned to my perch atop the dumpster — but this time, I wasn’t messing around. I began to methodically shuffle around in the opposite direction from Taylor, and the harvest of goods continued.
Socks, still in the package. An open roll of aluminum foil. Another towel. A Valentine’s Day box. A mug. NyQuil. (Seriously. Who throws away NyQuil at a time like this!?)
But most of all…. there was food. There was SO MUCH FOOD.
A open — but uneaten — bag of broccoli. A massive, mostly-full box of Goldfish. Two things of peanut butter and a thing of Nutella. Cans of soup. An unopened beer (which was, admittedly, a very surprising find in a freshman dumpster). Four additional boxes of Girl Scout cookies and two boxes of Chips Ahoy — all with only one or two cookies missing. Probiotic yogurt smoothies. Two pounds of brownie mix. Peanut-butter-filled pretzels. Protein bars and granola bars and Belvita biscuits and Ritz crackers.
And, more than anything else, there was instant oatmeal. Dozens and dozens and dozens of packages of it. Some boxes were sealed, but most were about half-full. It felt like there were more packets of oatmeal then there are freshmen at Mines.
At one point, as I gathered my fourth box of instant oatmeal, a girl left the residence hall carrying a full garbage bag. We made hard eye contact as she chucked her trash into the dumpster, but she just kinda smiled at me. Crouched over rubbish and wide-eyed in frozen terror, I felt conspicuously like a massive raccoon. Nevertheless, the girl just shrugged amiably and walked back inside the dorm.
I was enormously relieved at her rather unruffled reaction — but then I remembered being back in college, and I realized that I, too, would likely have been unfazed. The stuff that is considered “normal” at Mines is so bizarre that dumpster diving probably wouldn’t even make the “weird” list. Now, if only we had dressed as Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker…
[Note: Just kidding. LARPing would actually have made our activity *more* normal by Mines standards.]
To my delight, there were few trashbags that I personally needed to tear open; most of the best ones were already split. From the low quality of the plastic, I suspected that more than one bag had prematurely ripped before reaching its final destination atop the pile. I was glad that such catastrophe hadn’t happened to the girl earlier.
My ability to reach toward the center of the dumpster improved with time. I became better at choosing a solid footing, and my eye for spying out goodies sharpened as well. However, my husband’s [much] longer wingspan meant that he was still best-suited for sorting through the garbage in the very center of the dumpster.
Not surprisingly, Taylor worked significantly faster than I did. As the gap between us narrowed, I took a moment to gaze at the residence hall behind me.
Once — years ago — it had been *my* residence hall. I couldn’t see my old room from where I crouched, but I noticed that Mines had installed anti-suicide windows at some point. Who knows? Maybe they had actually been there all along.
My freshmen year was a crazy, crazy time — like, easily the craziest time of my life. I was a collegiate athlete, a 4.0 student, a lead actress, a teetotaler, and a kisser of seven boys. In addition, my habit of burning the candle at both ends left me with too little sleep to effectively form and retain memories of that time.
Consequently, my recollections from freshman year are mercurial and nebulous, like an intense fever dream. I can barely remember my roommate’s name — let alone the type of windows we had. My most vivid memories are mostly of “shooting star” relationships — friendships that flared briefly before fading into nonexistence.
“Babe.”
I hadn’t realized I was vacantly staring into middle distance until Taylor was only feet from me.
“Steve and I barbecued on that patio once,” I murmured. Some broken friendships are harder to forget than others.
“I know you miss him.”
Taylor’s sympathy snapped me out of my reverie. “Yeah, I do. But that’s whatever. Are we all done here?”
Taylor shrugged. “I think so. Let’s load this stuff into the car.”
I swung my legs over the edge of the dumpster and used my paltry upper body strength to lower myself slowly toward the ground. But, then my arms gave out, and I fell the remaining yard to the cement. I winced through several seconds of stinging feet, then grabbed a few salvaged items and met Taylor at our trunk.
“Well, that was much less immersive than I thought it would be!” I remarked.
My husband shrugged. “It would have been more dive-y if there weren’t so much stuff.”
… which made me the tiniest bit glad that there *was* so much stuff.
With the “diving” done, it was now time for the hard part: fitting the plethora of reclaimed goods into my moderately-sized trunk. I left Taylor to play this real-life game of Tetris while I went back for more salvaged items.
Eventually, we got everything into the trunk, and then we were off to the next dumpster. However, once we got there, a thin wail from the backseat alerted us to the end of our time working as a team. Australis was up, and she wanted company.
I sighed. “I’ll just hang out with her?”
“I think so. I’ll try to be quick.”
Considering the amount of goods he brought back, Taylor *was* quick. However, it didn’t feel that way, stuck in the car. Australis was calm enough that I was able to start working on this story as I held her, but I was reminded once again how very much I hate to be alone.
Soon enough, though, Taylor returned and began stowing his spoils. (Ew, there’s a trashy double entendres there.) After he placed the final items and we were all buckled, he drove us to the next dumpster.
Once again, I stayed in the car with Australis, who was now decidedly unhappy. I considered nursing her, but the car was parked along a main thoroughfare, and a huge gaggle of students were bustling about in a nearby lot: tossing bags into the dumpster, loading up cars, waving goodbye, and driving away. The scene made me a little sad, but not sad enough that I felt like flashing the first years.
So, instead of nursing, I blasted the album Action Bible Songs by Cedarmont Kids and was dismayed to discover that I know barely any of the words. (I guess I should’ve played her a TobyMac album instead.) Nevertheless, my daughter seemed pleased with my effort.
I glance over at Taylor’s current dumpster, which seemed to be much emptier than the others had been. Indeed, I couldn’t even see the top of his head, which suggested that he was crouching. Apparently, he had also spotted the crowd of freshmen.
As I watched, the top of my husband’s head poked up a few inches from the dumpster. He watched the road for a few seconds, then disappeared again.
He reappeared a minute later, but this time, I was prepared for it. Here is the resulting picture.
I don’t think anyone else saw him, and it seemed like he agreed with that assessment. After a second, he hopped out of the bin with a large bag in tow, then casually crossed the street to our car, tossed the sack in the trunk, and got back into the driver’s seat.
“You ready to go home?” he asked.
“What about that one?” I gestured to the freshmen-filled parking lot across the street.
“Nah, I don’t think I have enough self-confidence for that kind of audience.”
I wholeheartedly agreed.
When we got home, I realized that I had misjudged the relative difficulties of our tasks. I had thought that the hardest part had been fitting so much stuff into the limited storage space in my car. However, when I got home, I realized that the hardest part would *actually* be fitting so much stuff into the limited storage space in my house. The car didn’t have to be organized, but our house does. (To some extent.)
Taylor carried in the goods and piled them in our kitchen while I finally nursed Australis again.
“Take your time,” I murmured to her. I dreaded the task ahead.
When I could delay no longer, I carried my daughter into the kitchen and set her down in the playard. She happily gurgled at me through the mesh wall.
I turned to survey the collection of salvaged trash. For all the world, it seemed as though we had been quarantine grocery shopping. The massive size of the pile, the profusion of nonperishables, and the distinct lack of toilet paper all contributed to this similitude — although the towels and linens didn’t quite fit the hoarding vibe. So, I guess it looked like we had gone quarantine grocery shopping on the way home from ransacking a motel room.
Taylor stood with his hands on his hips. “Where do you want to start?”
I shrugged. “I guess with the stuff that has to get washed?”
The towels and sheets were joined in the washing machine by an assortment of clothes from a bag that Taylor had found.
“I assume the person meant to donate them, and just ran out of time,” he speculated. “The bag only had clothes in it.”
“Well, thanks to you, they will actually get donated!” I said. I hit Start and returned to the kitchen.
Taylor handed me an almost-empty bottle of Tide. “Do you want to just combine this with what we already have?”
I grabbed our Tide and poured one bottle into the other. Meanwhile, Taylor combined the numerous Tide Pods into a single childproof container.
“This is so fun,” I drawled.
Taylor: <grunts long-sufferingly>
The work was slow-going, but we eventually divided the spoils into several categories: perishable food, nonperishable food, items for the bathroom, items for the kitchen, and items for storage in the basement. We stowed all the perishable food in the refrigerator, then assessed the pile of nonperishable foods.
“We don’t need all of this,” Taylor stated bluntly.
I nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking that. We should give the good stuff to a food pantry — like, whatever’s still sealed and isn’t expired.”
I grabbed a big box, and we sorted out the “good stuff” from the unsealed, expired stuff that we would keep. Once again, I was immensely thankful for Colorado’s cold, dry weather.
At last, we were finally done with our night of dumpster diving, and I was so ready for bed. Australis was already napping in her playard.
And then, Taylor revealed the final item of the night, and I knew my hopes for an early bedtime were dashed.
“So, generally I wouldn’t pick up something like this, but it was just *so* much, and I hated to see it all just get tossed like that,” Taylor explained, holding up a sliced-open — but still nearly-full — five-pound bag of turkey deli meat.
I was, for once, speechless. I didn’t know if I was more shocked that some stranger flippantly discarded so much meat or that my husband audaciously retrieved said meat.
“It doesn’t even smell,” Taylor went on. “See?”
I sniffed the proffered bag. “It smells like turkey.”
“Exactly. But I think it’s actually probably safe.”
I shrugged. “It’s been pretty cold, so probably.” I thought for a second, then continued, “Well, you know what they say during pregnancy — you gotta heat up lunch meat until it’s steaming hot, and then it’s safe.”
Taylor looked at the massive bag of meat, then at our underpowered microwave. “Yeah, I’m thinking we’ll boil it instead.”
“The only thing more delicious than lunchmeat is boiled lunchmeat,” I agreed.
Taylor: <grunts in amusement>
He got out a pot and dumped in the turkey, which nearly overflowed the container. I watched in bewildered silence as he added water nearly to the brim.
I knew this couldn’t end well. “Um, do you think maybe you should use the bigger pot?”
Taylor shook his head. “Nah, this is good.”
Five minutes later, he was not quite so smug.
“Wish you had used that bigger pot, huh?” I smirked as the first pot boiled over.
“No, not really. I’m always confident in my decisions.”
Nevertheless, Taylor retrieved said bigger pot and poured in the boiling turkey water — only to discover that the pots were, in fact, actually the same size.
Taylor: <grunt accusingly>
“I thought it was bigger!” I laughed.
Taylor poured half the mix back into the original pot, and the turkey was finally able to boil without boiling over.
“So how are we going to eat this?” I asked.
“Yeah… I was trying to figure that out. What do you think?”
I shrugged. “Stack the slices on top of each other and cut into them like they’re a pretend steak?”
Taylor: <grunts pensively>
After a pause, he said, “I was actually thinking that we run it through the food processor and then hope that the slurry solidifies overnight.”
My laughter was cut off by Taylor’s expression. “Oh — you’re serious? What, are you going to add gelatin, too?”
“Yeah, I probably should, right?”
I shook my head. “I can barely handle you right now.”
But, Taylor was on a roll. “No, I feel like this could work! And I want this to be, like, a gourmet turkey slurry.”
With that, he begin rummaging in our spice drawer. Meanwhile, I moved the load of dumpster laundry into the dryer. I was astonished all over again at the amount of textile waste.
After a few minutes, Taylor called me over to the stove and probed, “So, if the turkey is already boiling with cloves and bay leaves, what else do you think it needs?”
“To be brought back to the Mines dumpster?”
“No, babe, that’s so wasteful! Aren’t you the one who’s always saying that it takes two hundred gallons of water to make a pound of turkey?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Five hundred gallons, yeah.”
“So you really want to throw twenty-five hundred gallons in the trash?”
I rolled my eyes. “No, obviously not. But I’m really not sure I can eat this.”
Taylor eyed me seriously. “Even if the dog eats it, it’s better than just leaving it in the trash.”
“I think the dog is Plan A for me.”
Taylor shrugged. “I guess that works.”
A few seconds later, Australis woke up and began to wail piteously. I tried briefly to bounce her, but I knew that my baby would only be consoled by nursing and sleeping.
“I gotta take her to bed,” I told Taylor. “I’m sorry I won’t be around for the turkey-puree-making.”
“No worries, babe.”
I took Australis back to our bedroom and nursed her. As we lay there, I could hear Taylor running the food processor again and again, and I imagined him mixing the meat to a homogenized consistency. I speculated how he would employ the gelatin. Add it to hot water first, and then mix it in? I wasn’t sure. My only experience with the ingredient was in making panna cotta — a markedly different dish than the one Taylor was preparing.
Once Australis was asleep in bed, I reluctantly crept out of my room and back to the kitchen. The scene that greeted me was nightmarish. Flecks of turkey meat dotted the counter and the floor, and Taylor was midway through pouring a huge amount of meat porridge into our engraved 9”x13” pan. It seemed that he had put down a single layer of plastic wrap, which was laughably inadequate protection against the enormous amount of turkey puree above it. As I looked on, Taylor laid down another layer of plastic wrap atop the meat, then slid the pan onto a vacant shelf in the refrigerator.
“Done!” he declared proudly.
“No, not done!” I corrected, gesturing to the defiled countertop and the army of dirty dishes.
“Yeah. But the turkey’s done, at least!”
I began rinsing gelatinizing-turkey-meat dishes and loading them into the dishwasher. Meanwhile, Taylor wiped down the counters, then wiped them down again. (The gelatin had some staying power.)
By the time I had finally processed all the dishes and started the dishwashing cycle, I was dead on my feet. “I’m sorry, babe, but I need to get ready for bed now. I’m exhausted.”
Taylor checked the time, which was nearing 1am. He winced.
“Go, babe. I’m almost done here.”
I rushed through my nighttime routine and collapsed gratefully into my bed. Taylor joined me there a short while later, and after a brief prayer, we were both asleep within minutes.
Seven-thirty came early — just as it always does. (We’re night owls.) Borealis, who had *not* been up late, was eager as ever to start the day, but Taylor and I did not feel the same way.
When we could put off the day no longer, Taylor went to go deal with Bo while I fed Australis. Afterward, I joined them in the kitchen and quickly pumped a few ounces of “Mommy milk” for my firstborn.
[Note: Under more normal circumstances — i.e. not a national dairy shortage — I donate breastmilk to Mother’s Milk Bank, which accepts donations from across the country. Check out more information about donating here.]
“Alright, how’d it set up?” I asked Taylor, who was leaning over the refrigerator.
He straightened up with pan in hand. “Well, it looks like it leaked a little.”
I peaked past him to confirm that, indeed, the refrigerator shelf now sported a thin layer of congealed turkey gelatin.
“I’m not cleaning that up,” I announced.
Taylor: <grunts resignedly>
I immediately got sucked into continuing the organizational work that we had started the previous night. Among other things, the bathroom items had never been stowed, so I began to tackle that task.
A few minutes later, I noticed that Taylor had finished washing the refrigerator shelf and was now frying something up on the stove.
“What are you cooking?” I asked.
Taylor moved aside so I could see the skillet.
“Is that the turkey?”
Taylor: <grunts in confirmation>
I glanced at the 9”x13” pan. Sure enough, a chunk of congealed meat puree was missing. And, now that I thought about it, I smelled the distinctive odor of turkey and cloves wafting from the skillet.
“Should I try it?” I asked.
Taylor shrugged, so I grabbed a fresh fork, scooped out a small piece of turkey composite, and — after only a brief hesitation — brought the fork to my mouth.
The meat product tasted as expected: barely tolerable, with a intense turkey flavor and a strong clove smell. I gagged a little, but managed to swallow.
Beside me, Taylor was using a spatula to spread the fried deli delight on a bagel. His first bite elicited a reaction very similar to mine. Things weren’t looking good for the turkey.
But, at some point overnight, I had warmed to the idea of saving the meat porridge. Now, I was unwilling to let it go without a fight. “What can we do to make this edible? Like, how can we cook it?”
Taylor shook his head slowly. I waited an agonizingly long time for him to speak, but he finally just said, “I can’t eat any more of this. It’s like bad pâté.”
I stiffened. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. It’s just a big pan of bad pâté.”
Tears sprang immediately to my eyes. “Dang it, Taylor! I was really going to make an effort to eat this, but now I can’t!”
Taylor: <grunts in confusion>
I sighed. “Remember that one time we were out to dinner and you ordered pâté as an appetizer, and it was the first time I had ever had it?”
Taylor: <grunts with memory loss>
“Ok, well, it happened. And while we were there — while I was still eating it — you just casually told me that dishonest farmers will purposely make their turkeys sick so their livers are bigger, and those are the turkey livers that cheap pâté is made from! So now I’ll never be able to eat pâté ever again, because those poor turkeys!”
“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry!” Taylor chuckled, even as he pulled me into a hug.
“I’m not,” I grumbled while wiping away tears.
Taylor leveled me with a serious stare. “I’m sure that these turkeys were perfectly healthy, right up until the point that they were brutally slaughtered.”
I laughed. “Staaaaaahp. You’re the worst. And, I know it’s ridiculous for me to be so upset. We’re not even vegetarian.”
Taylor gave me one last hug. “Don’t be sorry. I love your soft heart.“
“So what are we going to do about the pâté?”
“Dog, for sure.”
Once again, I wholeheartedly agreed.
The kids and I left the house about an hour later. Taylor was on a conference call, and while we are so blessed that he can work from home, the situation definitely brings with it some logistical challenges. There aren’t many places that the kids and I can “safely” go anymore, but at least our car is still a corona-free zone. (Lord willing!)
I had called ahead and received the green light to drive over to a small church in neighboring Lakewood. When I pulled into the parking lot, I left the car idling outside the building and ran around to the trunk.
Bo, in an uncharacteristically generous mood, merely smiled at me from his carseat.
I smiled back, a bit sadly. “I’m really sorry we can’t get you out, buddy. We’ll go out in the backyard when we get home, ok?”
I barely saw Bo’s nod before I was running into the church with both boxes of unexpired nonperishable goods. A volunteer pointed me toward the donation collection site, and I stayed at least six feet away from her as I dashed past.
When I dropped off the food, another volunteer enthused, “Wow, thank you! You are such a nice person!”
Thrown off by such an inaccurate assessment of my personality, I merely responded, “Yeah!” — you know, like a prideful dummy head.
What I *wanted* to say was this: “All praise be to God for sharing this bounty with us, and for blessing us with the opportunity to share it with others!”
Ah, well. Sometimes the words get confused between my heart and my mouth.
Thankfully, the car and my kids were both still waiting for me when I emerged. (I mean, the first volunteer had been watching the whole time, so I wasn’t too worried.) With that errand completed, we leisurely made our way back to Golden, taking the time to swing by Mines on our way in.
As I drove past, a freshman tossed a bag into one of the move-out dumpsters. The first bag was followed by another, then another.
Taylor answered my call on the second ring.
“Hey, T. Got any plans for tonight?”