Games I play

I would have titled this "Games We Play," but my husband isn't aware of the game.

My husband has this thing about recycling, yet, he's not very good at it. Well, that's not exactly true. He basically wants to recycle everything that he thinks is recycable. I question some of his recyclables, but he insists you can recycle them. I bet he's driving some person crazy at the recycling center. I seriously think some items should just be thrown away, regardless of whether they are recyclable or not.

Where he's not good at recycling is when he doesn't take the recycling out and we have bags of recycling in our hallway or many cans and bottles and various food containers on the counter. He simply doesn't get that in order to recycle, one must actually take out the recycling. Good intentions doesn't make the environment better.

I try to help out as much as I can (I'm usually the one that gathers all the cans, bottles and various food containers and puts them in a paper bag mind you (although he does insist you can recycle plastic bags that we get from the grocery store -- then why does the grocery store ask you to bring them back to them to recycle? Hmmm...a mystery) and then leave the bag in the hallway -- close to the door. So when he leaves, he can at least take that bag out with him.

Eventually he goes on a recycling and garbage rampage and throws out everything all at once (like today). The garbage actually gets thrown out more often, but there is a stink issue involved with it. So, he's a crazy, good intentioned, recycler.

So you wonder what my game is?

His new thing is when he replaces the toilet paper roll (yes, I've got him trained!), he stuffs the paper cover from the new roll (Costco brand -- hey, it's a good deal) into the old roll's center. And then he just leaves it on the toilet tank. I repeat -- he just leaves it on the tank.

So, at his rate, we'd have about 10 used toilet paper rolls on the tank before they got recycled (which means they'd have to leave the house, not just get placed in the recycle bin), and ideally we could make a fun pyramid out of them or even a castle if we had scissors and tape with us while we do our business.

But instead, whenever I go into our bathroom and see that lonely used toilet paper roll, I just pick it up and throw it away. Ack! Yes, it's true. This is a recent thing with him (he discovers new things to be recycled monthly), and I'm sorry, I'm not going to allow these rolls to pile up in our already tiny bathroom. Our bathroom and the recycling bin are as far apart as you can get in our condo. I don't see him ever taking the rolls away. I just see some weird designer's world of used toilet paper rolls with paper stuffed in them glued to the walls. A new wall art.

So far, he hasn't said anything to me, and I haven't said anything to him. He just keeps on keeping on with his good intentions, and I keep trying to keep my condo clean. I guess it's sabotage, but I'm hoping he'll learn at some point that the used toilet paper rolls keep getting thrown away and that maybe, just maybe, he should walk that baby to the recycling bin ASAP and save us all. (My sanity and the environment.)