Adventures in Recycling

Our garage resembling a fraternity house after Rush Week rather than that of an upstanding resident of Still Water Spring Condominiums; I took the bottles back to Meijer the other day. I thought it would be a simple task. When I lived in Michigan before you would bring in your bottles, some teenager would count them and give you cash money. *

1:15 on Tuesday I enter the bottle return room. The no taste having mullets** returning their Schlitz Cans are waiting for the Aluminum and Plastic machines to open up. The machine—the ONLY machine—that accepts glass in available. Uncertain of how this works, I insert the empty Bells Amber Ale. I get a notification “Bottle Not Big Enough.” Huh? It’s bottle sized. I try again. This time the machine turns and scans the bottle and throws it down a shoot similar to the drive through thingy*** at the bank. With each bottle you can hear the glass break when it reunites with the others. To the right of me is a box for general recycling—to discard the bottles yielding the message “product not sold” or “unauthorized bottle” as well as the cardboard materials that housed the bottles. I turn to discard the Bells Box and am obstructed by a woman who is digging through  said box. Digging, like a bum rummaging though the trash. As she obliviously stands in my way I watch with annoyance—she is slowing me down--and awe. Who goes searching for empties at the bottle return? I am tempted to take my 7 rejected items home to spite her. Finally I can discard my rubbish. $9.10 (91 bottles) later I move to an available Aluminum and Plastic machine to add another $1.10 to my pocket.

I must be getting old because I miss the days of pushing a cart of bottles--in those days cans of Goebel****--to the rear of the store and interacting with some student.  The new system is an ass ache for customers and means one less minimum wage job for some kid's gas fund.  I suspect the only entity that benefits is Meijer....

My Mom detests going in there hence avoids it by any means.  I think she, as usual, has the right idea. 

Reporting live from the Skee. 

*Used immediately after for a hangover breakfast at Denny's.

**A term my father uses to describe Rednecks

***Technical Term.

****Pronounced JoeBell (the French Beer). $9.99 got ya a 36 of cans.