The Bag Lady

The apartment looks like a bag lady lives there. Anyone living in an urban area in America has seen ladies with all their earthly possession in bags walking the street. That’s how my apartment looks before I make the trip to the recycling center, once or twice each month.

 In the small space between the drying machine and the enclosing wall stands an ironing board, upside down. On either ends of the ironing board two plastic bags stand. One contains the recyclable cans and the other plastic containers for the same purpose. Enclosing the work area are two doors. One of these doors lead to the hot water heater, the other door leads to the heating and cooling system. Occupants of these apartments are forbidden to place anything in the spaces under both appliances. That leaves the floor before the door to store the items waiting to be taken to the recycling center. The complex does not support recycling, and being an avid recycler for over three decades, I had to improvise.

So I place the materials I intend to take to the recycling center in plastic shopping bags to separate them. On the door knob of the hot water heater hangs a plastic bag to hold other plastic bags and the outer wrappings of toilet paper, bread, and any other thin plastic that comes into the apartment. On the knob of the heating system hangs another plastic bag holding pressed cardboard. That includes the insides of toilet paper, paper towels, boxes, stuff from the mail box and any other hard paper that comes into my apartment.

Thus I have become the bag lady of my apartment complex.

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