Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Landfill: A Lesson in Situational Irony



August and early September of 2012 were killers, hot-flash humid. Even so, my brand new, back-alley cottage industry was growing way past my expections and my basement’s capacity. I was even getting brave enough to post finds on Facebook:


*  a 1920s silver wind-up gramophone

*  antique steamer trunks






And a few fails, too, like the busted beyond repair sofa that tempted me with its super-cute cover
 
Some friends told me to start a blog, already, and keep my catalogue off their gossip and trivia feed. Others jumped in and sent me on quests. The moment I'd see a friend’s text about a neighbor’s garage clean-up. I’d throw the kids in the van, which I called “God Bless America,” for the bumper stickers my Syrian-born mother patriotically stuck on front and back windshields immediately after 9/11.
One brain-crushingly hot September afternoon, my husband’s cousin messaged me on Facebook. Halfway across the county, she informed me, her neighbor’s beautifully maintained, solid oak kitchen set was sitting on the curb. I had sudden, gut-wrenching visions of the whole pile getting crushed and dumped into a landfill. I had a newly-converted eco zealot’s hatred of landfill. Also, kitchen sets sell fast on Craigslist, and I was eager to make another 80 bucks.

The skies were darkening. Weather forecasters put Westchester on tornado watch. The girls were suffering from the oppressive heat and taking it out on each other. No matter—get in God Bless America and go!
For the most part, Westchester freeways move traffic north or south. Makes sense, as New York City has most of the jobs. The two-lane east-west roads connecting most of our little villages wind around hills and across streams like the paved-over cattle paths that they are. To a Californian, Westchester traffic light patterns appear designed to hinder any driver’s chance to gain momentum while maximizing air pollution potential.

The intermittent, hammering rain further slowed our progress to about 15 miles per hour. I tried to make light, child-friendly conversation about how the sky was turning an ominous shade of green.
Suddenly, a few hundred feet ahead, on the opposite side of the road, a big feathery thing dropped out of a tree and stagger-flapped around. I slowed down to a crawl so the girls could get a good look.

“Wow!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Remember how Dad was explaining that a bird gets weak and just falls out of a tree when it’s ready to die…?” My voice was animated. It’s grisly, all right, but the girls really had asked him to explain how birds die, and—Mountain Man that he is—he told them all about it. Anyway, this dying bird, a hawk, was the most interesting thing that had happened that day.
Then, two things simultaneously happened that made me wish I’d kept my mouth shut and my eyes glued to the road:
1.  The bird got run over and crushed flat by an oncoming pickup truck. Oh, crap, they’re gonna cry, I thought.
2.  The driver in front of me—a Volvo wagon displaying a “Jon Stewart for President 2012” bumper sticker—screeched to a stop. To see the flattened hawk.


He skidded. I hydroplaned.
I clenched every sphincter in my body and twisted the wheel to the right. Fifty feet—twenty feet!—farther and everything would have been fine.

As it was, Gold Bless America slowly, relentlessly slid across the rain-saturated grassy shoulder and slammed to a stop. The air bags did not deploy, our crash was so slow.
The dead hawk was instantly forgotten, but, ohhhh, did the girls cry then. Thankfully, no humans were hurt in the accident.

God Bless America, my immaculate, 11 year old, 41,000 mile minivan—which, only four years earlier, we had bought from my mother at Blue Book value and shipped from California because we knew we’d never find its like again—had wedged itself between an estate’s stone wall on the right and two poles (electrical and speed limit) on the left.

As my adrenaline rush waned, I snickered at the political allegory embedded in God Bless America’s demise, and I snapped a photo.
That day, my insurance agent pronounced God Bless America “a total loss.” It would cost more to replace the damaged axle and wheels than to cut me a check for the van's Blue Book value.

In return, the insurance company took ownership of God Bless America, salvaged the good parts (seats, air bags, and—hah!—new brakes and tires) and shipped the crushed cube of its body to China to be melted into steel bars. The rest, they threw away.

Yes: I wanted to save a kitchen table from the landfill, but I put my minivan in it instead.
To a former English teacher, that is a fine example of situational irony. Let’s call it a day, shall we?

Copyright 2013, Tanya Monier


4 comments:

  1. Love the blog! Haven't seen you in a while, hope all is well. Glad crash wasn't worse. From what I've read so far, think you'd like my wife's blog too. Kindred anti-landfill, curb sale enthusiasts. http://capeofdreams.wordpress.com/ don't think you two have met though, she came to the Hilltop after you had left.
    Take care, and keep the blog rolling

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  2. Hello Iron Man Long Runner (out of respect, I will call you by your superhero name and not by your workaday name).
    First: how in the world did you find the blog? Really nice and really unexpected to hear from you!
    Second: I have begun checking out your wife's site. I think I will like it! It's a good complement to mine, because you guys are finishers of projects. That's really not my strong point. :)
    I'll see you on the Hilltop, no doubt, and I look forward to meeting your wife.

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  3. Vanessa posted it on her FB page and title caught my eye. Didn't realize until after I read it, shared it on my wife's FB and was in process of commenting on it who the author was though. You can use my super hero name or secret identity, all work... as for project finishers? well, we do sometimes, but you should see the stack of unfinished in our basement and shed...

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  4. I'm enjoying your wife's posts. I, too, happened to have a problem with spray paint this week.
    There are folks who like a clean homestead. They are the ones who throw out stuff that the rest of us take in. It's an interesting relationship....

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