Cleaning up the joint

Today, officially, I am sore.

Why you say? Did you play too much golf on the wicked hot weather weekend that just passed? Did you lift heavy things for Mrs. Spit?

No. I did combine the two activities of lifting heavy things on a wicked hot (for here) day yesterday. As part of the city's campaign to keep the place clean, they hold "Big Bin" events over the summer. Instead of having to haul dead appliances to the recycling centers and pay a fee to get rid of them, or loading up the vehicle with a whack of garbage and taking it to the dump, where you pay by weight dropped off, the local citizenry gets to take it to the big bins and get rid of junk for free. They have tons of large bins and garbage trucks and the lines can be long as people flock to get rid of their junk for free.

In my annual (sometimes biannual) excursion this weekend, I volunteered for the local community group that, using 1 tonne cube vans paid for by the city, wanders the alleys of our neighbourhood to rid it of useless and ugly clutter. We actually charged $5 per item to haul away, though in some cases we just grabbed stuff that was obviously junk that the garbage collectors wouldn't have taken anyways.

We 'only' loaded my van three times. But the stuff you find! Old fridges that weigh a tonne (or so it seems). Wet soggy mattresses that stink. Washer/dryer sets - including one that promised "infinite heat". Now that I'd like to see! Gimme solar corona heat! Yeah! 10,000,000 degrees! Oh, really, infinite doesn't mean infinite? Another driver found a fridge made by International Harvester. Yes, the tractor people. How old was that?!?

And of course, the bane of any move, whether it be to the dump or into a new house - the hide-a-bed. Why do these things have to weight SO MUCH?!?!? Seriously. It's a small metal frame in a loveseat for crying out loud.

This morning I'm acutely aware of the soreness in my back from the workout yesterday. But it's a good pain. I know that I have contributed in a small part to turning my neighbourhood alleys into something a little more 'city' and a little less 'city dump', and that's a good thing.