There were these Pepsi, Coke and RC "collector's" bottles that we have had as far as I can remember. There was a chance they were in this garage before we even moved in, which was a long, long time ago. They were just ... there. I didn't think too much of it.
Yet, when My Father started cleaning out the garage a few months ago, I got really, really sentimental. I remember seeing them in the garage when I was young, and I left them alone. Now, there was a possibility that My Father left them there because he thought they were going to accrue in value. But really, when I saw them, pangs of my long-forgotten youth came back on me like a wave. It's really, really pathetic that I only cared about these bottles as they were being taken out to the curb to be recycled. But these bottles, to me, deserved a fate better than mere recycling.
So you know what I did? The first time he put those collector's bottles out, in the morning, just after I administered insulin shots to Grandmother, I went outside, took those bottles, and put them in my car trunk. I will not let these good soldiers, made out of sturdy glass that have stood the test of time, to be merely ran through a life cycle. They could be used by someone ... for something else ... and maybe I can make some money off of it. And I did it again the next week. I now have two big plastic bigs filled with Pepsi, Coke and RC bottles, both two-liters and those old-school glass six-packs.
But I'll be goddamned, he was cleaning out the garage this past weekend and found even more hidden in an old cabinet. He took out one of the two recycling bins we were issued by the city, put them in that bin, and put them next to his window outside, just outside the garage door, to put out to the curb this morning.
Mentally I was racing to Thursday -- this morning -- and thinking about how to "save" these bottles. I've been leaving for work in the morning after they left for the morning, so it's easy to just throw the bottles in the trunk of my car and put them in storage before I come back from work that evening, or some other day. Since they're at work all day -- assuming they don't come back for a surprise doctor's appointment or something -- they won't know I took the bottles before the recycler did.
However ... I looked up the prices for bottles up for auction on eBay. They ain't worth shit. And they're not selling. But they say that they're collector's items themselves! Turns out my sentimental is just that, because it looks quite doubtful I could get any money for them. I might as well ... have them recycled. So maybe I shouldn't over-exert myself. I have more than enough. And maybe getting this ... "clutter" out of the house will be good for us, for me. Besides, I told myself that I just don't have the time to "save" every glass bottle that might be in the garage; if My Fucking Father finds more during this project I'm working on, I'll just have to let it go.
I thought about this when leaving for work this morning. I was sort of running late, and yet I went down to the end of the driveway and just stared at that blue bin of bottles. My knee-jerk reaction was, "Dump the bottles into the car ... I can figure out how to bag them up by the time I take it to storage." But ... maybe it wasn't worth it. I did want to make it to work on time (which I did), and maybe taking these seemingly worthless glass bottles, as old as they are, as beautiful as they are, made no sense.
There were 13 bottles My Fucking Father put into this bin. They were all Pepsi 2-liters, except two of them, a Coke and an RC. So I compromised. I did pluck a fully-furnished game of Clue: Master Detective (the bigger sequel to Clue) out of last week's recycle pile. I took those two outlier bottles and threw them in my trunk. The other 11 Pepsis? I let them go.
And I probably will forget later all the angst I'm expending on this now.
No comments:
Post a Comment