On Recycling

a guest post by Lady of the Nacht

We've all been imbued with the importance of recycling. And when you enjoy beer as much as I do, it becomes crucial to dispose of all those cans bottles in an environmentally-friendly manner.
Thank Goddess for the Jamaica Plain outpost of Blanchard's, our local liquor store and recycling center, where the triangulating arrows of the recycling symbol manifests: return PBR Ten Fidy cans, buy (with those nifty recycling machine print-outs) some 40s a fine chardonnay to be enjoyed as a spritzer, with an ice cube (Hi Mom!). Rinse and Repeat.

It was a nice little JP Saturday: I purchased a refurbished bike at Bikes Not Bombs (finally!) with the help of one of the Crows and my Steady Gentleman Caller (SGC). Although my errands for the weekend included obtaining new running shoes, doing laundry, and cleaning my apartment (I know, my life is hard), after the bike purchase I really only had time for one more task. As the entire entrance of my apartment was filled with beer bottles and cans, I prioritized recycling and enlisted SGC and his trusty JP steed (a Subaru, natch) to help me cart the detritus down Centre Street. Conveniently, SGC is as much of an enjoyer of fine wines as I am, so he had quite the collection of soldiers littering his room as well. If we're going to emit some carbon, might as well kill two birds with one stone--trust, we needed the car, and I was feeling smug over my BNB buy--so we added his recycling to the pile.

A stalled parallel parking attempt and a shopping cart wedged at the entrance later (we forgot they have a turnstile at the entrance, whoops!), we were ready to recycle. Now, I know most of my friends put their recycling out with the trash or otherwise don't really deal with it beyond rinsing and sorting, but we wanted that refund, and seriously, guys, there is something SO SATISFYING ABOUT THAT CRUSHING PULVERIZED GLASS NOISE THOSE MACHINES MAKE!!!

Recycling recycled, receipts printed, we ventured over to the beer section of the store. Our goal was to have enough of a refund to purchase a decent six-pack, and we had met this goal. However--and maybe it was the warm weather, but who really knows where ideas come from (they just appear)--we were inexplicably drawn to the few big, sad 40 oz beers tucked back on the bottom cooler shelf. Like rained-on, kinda hungry cows, they blinked at us with big brown eyes from their lesser pasture, begging to be bought. "Drink me," they stated, "and ignore the taste."

They really weren't that bad. And now the empty 40 bottles perch in my vestibule, waiting to be buried by a mound of what is sure to be more bottles and cans, all so that the circle of life triangle of recycling can begin again. Only this time, I'll try to haul it all on my recycled bike.