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| Ice packs for cooler, June 2023. Credit: Mzuriana. |
Considering that all my stuff can fit into my car, I am chuckling to myself this month, as I finally let go of some odds and ends that I've been carrying around. There are no items so small that they can't get in one's way, eventually.
My three hard-sided ice packs
Jeez, I have schlepped these baby-blue blocks all over the damn place for years! And every blessed time I pull them out of my freezer to place in a cooler, I feel resentful and I have this exact thought: "Not only are these completely worthless to me once they are no longer cold, they continue to take up space after they're spent, and then I've got to carry them back, where I'll return them to the freezer where they will sit and do nothing some more."
The ice packs are now in the donation box here in my Longmont bedroom.
The penultimate tipping point that foreshadowed their eviction: A while back I employed my new and wondrous strategy for keeping things cold in my coolers: glass jars that I fill with ice. When the ice melts, the water remains enclosed in the jar and I've got clean cold water I can drink, already in a vessel that I can drink from. But I can also use these jars to keep other liquids in, like soup. Or stuff I want to keep dry. They are multi-purpose.
The final tipping point: Sister Murphy's freezer is already so full that I can barely squeeze in my frozen veggies, much less these prima donna ice packs. Consequently, they simply squat in my bedroom and do nothing.
Out you go!
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| One-cup coffee bags from motel. Unknown vintage from past trip. Credit: Mzuriana. |
These three, individually wrapped, one-cup coffee packs from a motel
Who knows when I collected these coffee packs from a past road trip. The Lost Summer of 2021 maybe? No matter. What matters is that I don't need to collect this kind of shit anymore. Because:
- I carry good instant coffee with me on any road trip, so all I need is water to make some good coffee. It doesn't even have to be hot water, sha.
- I've even got some mediocre instant coffee in the single-cup sleeves.
This past Friday morning, I brewed all three baglets.
Complete! (As the Georgian police officer said at our supra in her Fiat. And, by the way, "fiat" comes from the Latin meaning: Let it be done!)
The pretty yet profligately wasteful swag, #1
I do love swag. I'm talking the freebies one gets from community fairs and the like that local organizations distribute to advertise their missions.
I've put one new item in the donation box, with equal parts sadness and irritation. I loved everything about the item:
- The serene green exterior
- The utility - we can always use a reusable cup, right?!
- How its size would let it so prettily in my car's cup holder.
I mentally clapped my hands in childlike joy when I saw it on the tabletop of a community fair. "Are these free?" I asked. "Yes!" they said. "Oh!" I exclaimed in happy gladness, but in my head, the "oh" sounded like "ooooh!"
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| Reusable drink cup from Boulder County Board of Elections. May 2023. Credit: Mzuriana. |
But later, upon my return to Murphy's, when I pulled the cup out of my sunflower-yellow knapsack (swag that I'd gotten in Las Cruces), to wash it before my first use, I saw this piece of paper inside:
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| Washing instructions for cup. May 2023. Credit: Mzuriana. |
What. The. Fuck.
I felt not only crestfallen, but pissed.
I can only wash it by hand but I can put hot coffee in it, right? Right? Maybe? Maybe not?
I can microwave it so that the contents might be super hot, right? Maybe? Maybe not?
The moment the warning paper is gone from the cup, then no future user will have any clue that the cup can't be in the top rack of a dishwasher. Because there is NO WARNING on the cup itself. Furthermore: Many wheat straw products ARE dishwasher safe.
Just not this one.
To the Boulder County Elections Board: Fail.
The pretty yet profligately wasteful swag, #2
In Mobile, I happily accepted this perky utilitarian pandemic-era hand wipes bauble:
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| Wet wipes swag from community fair in Mobile, Alabama. 2022. Credit: Mzuriana. |
Today, I pitched the second of the two I received. The first one - the wipes dried out not long after I broke the seal on the container. This second one - the wipes are so tiny, they're almost useless for their purpose. And to be encased in such grand plastic - wasteful.
Lesson learned for me: Think before I get carried away by cuteness. Is it really as useful as it looks? Do I already have enough of whatever it is? Do I already have an alternative form of the item that is less wasteful in its composition? In this case, specifically: I have an ample supply of hand sanitizer. Furthermore, I already have several receptacles for sanitizer that are refillable. This particular gewgaw did not add any value to me.
Finally, I think I have outgrown hotel shampoos and soaps
While here in Longmont, I'm using up the small cache of motel shampoos, conditioners, and small soaps that I've collected (and schlepped around) in my travels in the past several years.
Although diminutive, they still take up space. Besides, they are brands not of my choosing, but of the motel chain's choosing.
