I honestly hate doing more than the minimum, especially right now, in the middle of all this heat, this is really one of the hotter summers I can remember. We have been hitting over 100 most of the days here in June and July. As they say, oh well, life goes on. This week we are doing our city wide clean up, where we can put our junk out on the front curb and the city will come get it. I believe they do this twice a year.
Left to my own devices, I would have ignored it, we have some stuff to get rid of, but it really doesn't bother me. Wife, on the other hand, has been waiting for this, like it is Christmas morning. She had been giving me subtle warnings, "hey, the bulk pick up is coming around, you need to throw away the old grill..." stuff like that. We all kind of spent Saturday napping and generally just staying out of the heat. Sunday though, there was no getting away from her.
In the peak of the heat, around 4:00pm, she reminded me that not only does the grill have to go, but that old swing, the sofa in the garage, and the small sofa in Mijo's bedroom. That just felt like way too much. I snapped back, "why don't you help, after all, I believe in women's rights." She was ready with a response (they all are when the going gets rough), "I have strong men in this house, I don't need to go show you how to do it." Ugh, appealing to our ego, and if she does do it, what good am I? I got Mijo and told him, this'll suck but it should only take a half hour.
He worked on gathering all the trash and getting the trash cans to the street, I worked on rolling the grill to the front, luckily it does have wheels. We then got together to work on getting the sofa out of the garage, we had to move a bunch of stuff, it was mildly buried under a bunch of boxes and bins. Boy had gotten this sectional sofa from a friend, we were holding it for her, but it has now been in our garage for at least three years, and we were worried mice or other nasty critters would be making it their home. Along with the sofa, I then grabbed multiple boxes, such as the one the new carpet washer came in from a couple months ago and threw away enough stuff to make a nice passage from the front to the back of the garage.
The grill wasn't on the curb for more than 5 minutes before a man in a beat-up truck came around. I was still breaking down boxes, so I saw him slow down and he seemed very polite. I told him to gof or it, then gauging that he looked to be in his 60s, I asked him if he wanted help. He said he would appreciate the help, I then had to ask if he was taking it for scrap or if he was going to repair it, if he wanted to repair it, I would get him the rest of the parts. He said he had a mechanic friend and would be trying to get if fixed. I explained what was wrong, and then I went and got the parts I had, including the new computer screen, which did cost me like $60, but I had left it out for about 2-3 months now, so it wasn't going to be returned to the manufacturer. While I went to the back to get the parts, I told Mijo to help the man get the grill in the truck, and I thought they were going to need my help, the grill is heavy, but they had it up in the air before I made it back. I saw it tip backward and it could have easily been dropped, but the man said he was amazed at Mijo's strength. I believe assembled that grill weighed 240 pounds.
I told the man I was glad someone was going to try and give the grill life; I hated the idea that it was just going to go get crushed in the dump. He said he liked driving around and looking for stuff like this and fixing it and selling it for a couple bucks. Considering he was doing this in the heat that I was whining about, I felt a little bad for the man, who was in his late 60s, he said. He took off, and I finished filling the trash cans with crap, then I headed inside to look after my ribs.
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