To start, my dearly departed grandfather was the master of the incinerator. My grandmother would send him there all day. At one point, he knew to go. However, he was always given the nudge. But he was not a creature of it. When I say creatures of the incinerator, I don’t mean rodents. We all know they spend time there.
What I mean are the people who can’t follow the rules. Same with the laundry room and gym. We are constantly beset with new rules on how to toss out our trash. We, those of us in apartment buildings, have the various trash cans for paper, aluminum, and within the last year or so we got our compost cans. People dwelling in houses have those cans at the top of their driveways and place them at their curbs on the appropriate days.
I am a neat freak. I follow all the trash disposal rules. I often think of grandpa when I take out the trash. What I cannot understand is why people cannot clean out takeout containers before they place them into the receptacles in the incinerator. The other day, I walked in to throw out my newspaper and found an aluminum take-out container loaded with cheese and sauce. This happens regularly. Don’t the creatures who dump this into the recycle bins know this will bring roaches and mice? Is it that hard to rinse it out? I do. My recyclables look like they came off the assembly line and are waiting for pasta or something to be loaded up.
Let’s jump over to the laundry room. In my old apartment complex (Bay Terrace, Staten Island), I was known as laundry boy. In my current building, I either use the laundry room or drop it off at the dry cleaners. Lately, I’ve been doing it myself. I am not the best when it comes to folding. But I live.
I have to stand tall to add the Downy. Sometimes the machines do not work. I usually do laundry when I have the room to myself and have my pick of the washers and dryers. Alas, sometimes people are doing laundry with me. It is okay. I know who they are. There is a very sweet woman who says hello to everyone. Sometimes she has trouble with the machines. Sometimes she stands on top of one of the washers and sings. I am not sure why. But she does. She’s about my height. I always thought she climbed on top to add Downy. I am not sure. But I often walk into a concert. Maybe one day she will perform at the Garden. I hope the stage has a laundry room.
Then there’s the gym. Well before COVID, I had my towel in hand and wiped off each machine pre- and post-use. I now grab the Purell wipes and scrub. There are far too many people who bounce between machines and never clean anything. I am not sure they clean themselves. There’s the man who never washes his hands after using the gym’s bathroom. He never wipes any machine. There’s the couple that works out together. They proudly say during COVID they would not wear masks or give anything an extra wipe down. They sweat all over the machines. It makes no sense.
There are creatures everywhere. I don’t think they are the little creatures the Talking Heads meant when they recorded their landmark album, “Little Creatures.”
Mitchell's thoughts, photos, etc. 