Authors Note: The following story was written at the request of the Bailey family. Apologies for any hyperbole and editorializing, but I've always felt objectivity was in the eye of the beholder.)
R. J. Wilder
Accumulation of clutter has become a uniquely American pastime. Material acquisition and striving for excess over enoughness is habitual and endemic. Eventually the time comes to unclutter. If we are lucky, this occurs when we finally realize the weight and waste all our "stuff" adds to our lives and the planet. At this point we might choose to give it away and live more simply. Bankruptcy, theft, house fires, and repossession by finance companies can help with this.
In the absence of such personal epiphany or tragedy, a day comes when this really hits close to home - the day when we are left to dispose of the worldly possessions of someone who has died; usually our parents. We've all been there, or we will be. Since clearing away the earthly belongings of others is most always an adventure, I suggest you do what my pal Bailey did, share the adventure with others!
I'm sure Bob was aware that his dad Al was turning the family home into a chemical dump and flea market, but if it concerned him, he never let on. Amassing miscellany is firmly in the family gene pool. Indeed, young Bob has spent most of a lifetime buying, swapping, dusting, arranging and selling hundreds and hundreds of little slugs of lead called toy soldiers, every one of which LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME!! After his parents passed on, Bob found himself with an entirely new kind of collection.
The first year Bob invited friends, neighbors and total strangers to the old garage. He would often buy you a couple drinks first to weaken your resolve. "Take this home." he would say. "You need these!" Cheryl and I came a bit late to the program, but got some pretty keen stuff, though none of it very useful. All the items were in multiples ranging from a dozen to a gross or more, new and packaged, price tags in place. Here's just a sample of the stuff we saw: pens, pencils, erasers, craft kits, toys, eyeliner, nail polish, razor blades, hinges, hasps, mace, lace, tags, flags, eyeglasses, tablets, tape, twine, watches, meat thermometers, locks, chalk, and I swear a whole wall stacked with glass thermos bottle liners in several assorted sizes. (Can't have too many of those!)
When we left the free shopping spree that night, I generously offered to come back when Bob was ready and "load up the rest and get it out of his way." Friends like me are hard to find. Most everyone else is a great deal smarter.
In mid-April, having gotten my truck Angelo running for the 43rd spring, I backed up to the Bailey place naively ready to undo a mess that took decades to create. In projects such as this, someone needs to decide What Goes, and someone else, Where It Goes. My friend and I were both suited to our roles. Bob expressed little separation anxiety, and I called on my knowledge of proper and ethical waste disposal. Much of the stuff was just plain trash. I also knew a neighbor who had one of those 24/7 "weekend" yard sales and would gladly take the packaged goods. Finally, I had spent many fine afternoons at the county recycling center and was a pro at sorting paper products and containers. The loading began.
It went well the first couple hours, Bob rejoiced at finding the concrete floor of the family garage. Things got more uncertain, however, when we came upon the big, brown bottles, aged canisters, and Latin-labeled vials and cartons that were hiding in the dark and dusty back of the building.
Al Bailey had been a pharmacist for many years. He owned stores in Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater, and obviously enjoyed bringing his work home with him. The science of medicinal compounding was familiar enough that nothing I saw really surprised me -- well, maybe the thirty-five pounds of rat poison -- but I remained a bit puzzled why someone would take home expired bulk chemicals and compounds and keep them for over twenty five years. (Because they were his, and because he felt like it I guess). "The good stuff is in the basement," Bob told me. But I didn't want to know. I signed on for the garage and the garage only.
On the second trip to the landfill, while off-loading some empty bottles and cans, I noticed the County Environmental Health "Hazo-House" was open. It is here that responsible citizens of Thurston County can come in on the weekends with their spent radio batteries, half empty cans of bug spray, or maybe a pint or two of expired transmission fluid. Once you enter the specially isolated area, the nice man will come out in a white suit and rubber boots sporting those big gloves that Sir Lancelot wore, and, with due sanctimony, carefully sniff, sort, label, seal, and dispose of your threat to the planet.
On this day, things went just a bit different. While I began to joke about the uniqueness of my load to two fellows named Delbert and Rich, they stared at the back of the truck in stunned silence. Before long they were punching phone numbers with nervous fingers and flipping through three-ring binders so fast the pages were flying about in the wind. They approached me and my old truck with an odd mix of ignorance, panic, and pretension.
It was a stand off. What I made of their immediate opinion was that this particular truckload could neither stay where it was or go anywhere. I couldn't unload the chemicals there because Delbert wouldn't except responsibility for them, nor could I take them anywhere else. So I did the responsible thing. I walked away.
After I thumbed it home (I was picked up by my wife's boss and his family and got to sit next to a mother-in-law who appeared a bit puzzled why her daughter's husband would pick up a filthy hitchhiker). Eager to finish the job I started, I loaded more recyclables onto my van and went back to the dump. Just as I was flattening the last of the cardboard, an employee told me to finish up fast and leave. They were evacuating and closing the facility.
I'm laughing now. I looked over to the Hazo-House and saw a lot of pacing and arm-flailing. I hung around long enough to shoot a couple of pictures as the Lacey Fire Department cruised in. I left the grounds in a line of cars driven by husbands that had finally got around to spring cleaning and who would be returning home with their garbage trying to think of something to tell the wife.
There is a lesson or two to be learned by this story. First of all, you might want to look around your parents' home and make your vacation plans for the year the last one passes on. Plan to ask for at least a month off from work. You might also consider what kind of crap and clutter decorates your own life so far, and give your children the gift of downsizing. I like one of the more progressive social policy ideas for dealing with our compulsive conspicuous collection and consumption: Tag a fee on every item sold in this country that will cover the cost of disposal. That and a law requiring a device that blanks commercial messages from all the airwaves, so I don't have to be shouted at about all the shit I "need"! But I digress...
By the time I bailed Angelo out of the Hazo-House, the Department of Ecology, two fire districts, the bomb squad (which took the four canisters of ethylene oxide away to meet their maker), the County Health Department, the sheriff, and the Washington State Patrol all had a part in this. Delbert told me to have Bob expect a trooper to cruise by his old house. Do you suppose he may just be looking for a nice neighborhood in which to buy?
The bill for disposal came in under a thousand. I suppose we could have given them a phony name and just let them keep Angelo. Call it even. But if a bit confused, these guys were just smart enough not to let us get away with that.
Copyright RJ Wilder, 9-00, Used by permission.
Last revised 050327.