Garbage Elves

Dearest Rachel –

One of the more mundane challenges of dealing with life without you is that of being the one responsible for keeping the house clean. I can’t leave plates by the sink after a meal – at least, not for very long – lest the sauce and crumbs stick to the plate. I have to remember to rinse everything off, and put it in the dishwasher right away (with certain allowances for not loudly running water while Daniel is sleeping in the other room). At least I don’t run afoul of your methods of loading and unloading the machine – I have figured out how to remove the silverware holder (although there’s also a third-layer drawer in the machine the appears to be for silverware as well, so I’m not always sure which to use).

I also do all my own laundry these days, and not just my permanent press dress shirts; and it’s just as well, since if I waited until a had a suitably large load of those, I’d never do laundry at all. You might be surprised as to the frequency; I’ve probably got it down to a couple or three loads (whites, blacks, and colors separately – I’m not making those bachelor mistakes that leave one with pink or pale blue underwear) every other week or so, rather than waiting for a month for things to pile up. Granted, I don’t ever bother with ironing or hand washing stuff, but I suspect that comes from not having the same level of delicate fabrics you brought to the household.

And then, there’s the garbage (and recyclables). As horrified as you might have been by the purges throughout the summer after your passing (and please understand, I would never have undergone that were you still here. If nothing else, your presence would have meant you were still here to want to use or wear most of what we disposed of or donated elsewhere), you might well be concerned about how willing I’ve been to throw things out at I go along. I don’t always get every crumb or dab out of the container, and I certainly don’t wash everything before tossing it in the recycling bin. Life’s too short for that, honey. Even you knew that, deep down, since you rarely got around to doing so – although you did make the concession of feeling guilty now and again, going on occasional frenzies of washing soup cans and drinks bottles. Meanwhile, I just toss them as is, with perhaps only the most cursory and perfunctory rinsing.

As a result, where we used to go at least every other week without having to roll the bins out to the curb the night before garbage day (which was east to remember, as we would simply come home from Sparks on Monday night, and check whether it was worth bothering or not), these days we only skip maybe every third or fourth week. It may be partly due to Logan’s presence, as he goes through bottles of Diet Coke like he owned stock in the company (which, to be fair, would not be a bad recommendation for him to do, but that’s another subject entirely, and one I just touched on yesterday; besides, I’m only his landlord , not his financial advisor), but I won’t deny that, between our experiences with Jan and Kris, we’ve simply learned to throw things out as we go.

Anyway, since we’d already skipped the week when we were in Rosemont for the convention last weekend, this was going to be an absolute must for us to take things out to the curb this week. The trouble is, with the holiday on Monday, everything gets pushed back a day as a result. We couldn’t wheel the bins out on Monday night, as they’d be sitting on the curb for a good thirty-plus hours thereafter. So I asked Daniel to remember to remind me to get things taken out on Tuesday evening (yesterday) instead, as I had a feeling that, somewhere along the line, I would forget.

And sure enough, I did. Shortly after waking up this morning, I heard the roar of a truck, and realized what I hadn’t remembered to do. Now, in fairness, it’s usually the trucks across the street in Rolling Meadows that make their rounds at otherwise absurd hours like seven in the morning; on our side, the company our village contracts with don’t come by until closer to nine (four in the afternoon for the recyclables), so I still had time to get the bins out there. So I threw on my robe to head outside…

…but as I got to the door, I spotted the bins already by the curb. One or the other of the boys had dragged them out there while I holed up in the bedroom to give them the space to spend their evening together, as per usual. And I’m telling you all this to give credit where credit is due.

Of course, credit is one thing; in order to encourage this behavior going forward, I needed to express appreciation as well. And while I didn’t have a whole lot of time to talk to either of them (Logan doesn’t spend much time downstairs in the morning, except to fill his water bottle from the fridge before he heads out to work, and Daniel basically sleeps until I’m just about to leave the house), I did let them both know how appreciative I was for their help. The odd thing was, when I expressed my thanks to Logan, he simply acknowledged it without offering any credit to Daniel for having done so, leaving me to think that he’d rolled the bins out himself – which honestly wouldn’t have surprised me. Then again, I never specified that my thanks had to do with the bins; he may have thought it had to do with handling dinner last night – he’d prepared some cheddar wursts in a skillet (unlike my usual method of broiling them in the oven) – which he did on his own.

But when Daniel did finally get up, just as I was about to pack up and head out, I asked him specifically about the bins. It seems he’d been the one to deal with that on his own; in fact, it was the sound of Logan closing the door on his room that reminded Daniel of the fact that the job still needed to be done – and so, he did it. So of course, I let me know that I was appreciative of him for doing so, no matter how late it had been done. After all, it was earlier than I had been able to think about doing it; and by the time I had, it was already taken care of.

I know I’ve joked about how, when something is done around the house that I had no part in, that it’s the result of house elves, rather than the reality that it’s actually been done by someone else here in the house. But it’s gratifying when it I can credit Daniel (or Logan, even – although I do worry that his unsolicited willingness to help, especially in the kitchen, leaves me praising him more than our own son) for accomplishing certain tasks that are a part of everyday home life. I can’t guarantee that this bodes well for his future, but it’s better than your folks feared, and that’s something right there.

Anyway, honey, continue to keep an eye on us, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.