A Garbage Bag Full of Memories

Photo: IndiaMART

I swore I would try my best to leave as little trace of me as possible when I kick off. When my aunt died two years ago, I was tasked with clearing out her house and putting it on the market.  She left the place as if she was going out to the corner store to pick up milk.  The day the paramedics took her to the hospital for the last time she had been reading that month's issue of MacLean's. She had no intention of dying and was obstinate in the face of death. She still had things to do. Attend the ballet. Go out for dinner.  Read the December issue of Maclean's.  But death has a way of sneaking up on us when we least expect it, or rather, when we choose to ignore it.  So as an executor of my aunt's estate, I was faced with the gargantuan duty of emptying out a four bedroom house.  After this emotionally and physically draining ordeal, I vowed to clean up my act, as it were.

     And who would tidy up after my carcass anyway? A far flung niece or nephew? An elderly sibling? Guys in Hazmat suits? I've decided to make it easy on the poor sap who ends up sweeping up the debris of my life.

     To this end, I recently purged my music collection (I say collection when I really mean broken cassettes and cds). Charity doesn't even want cassettes or cds. They are difficult to rid oneself of, especially if they are full of tunes from The Exploited or Crass. I listened to some cassettes one more time, to see if I really wanted to let them go. One listen to Bloody Revolutions expunged any nostalgia. It was much harder to say goodbye to the mixed tapes I made, with the needle drop onto vinyl and those sweet few seconds of scratchy anticipation before the opening notes and chords of a punk anthem or a Beethoven piano sonata.

     I don't miss those days. My youth was a smorgasbord of insanity. Mixed tapes for tortured emotions. Thank God for medication and sobriety is alls I'm sayin'. Still, my formative years shaped me into the bewildered yet loveable individual I am today.

     But why keep my extreme and eclectic taste in music to myself? I didn't want to throw my music collection out to the curb with the week's trash. That would not be environmentally friendly, on many different levels. Instead, I packed a garbage bag full of cassettes and cds, of memories both vague and horrible, and headed up to my local Best Buy, because it has an electronic waste program.

     The fellow behind the counter had a phosphorescent glow. I'm still not sure if he was a hologram.

            "May I help you," he said.

            "Uh, yeah. Do you accept e-waste?"

            "Yes we do. You can just leave it on the counter."

            "Really?"

     He sputtered, as if someone had poured water on the motherboard in his head. "Uh, er. I. Y-y-y-yesss. "Yes."

            I cradled the bulging garbage bag in my arms. I considered telling him what was in the bag. My anger. My sensitive and romantic soul. My wacky show biz side. Dreams. Sobbing. Angst. Why burden him with my memories.

            "Here you go, then. Thanks!" I unloaded the bursting plastic bulk onto the counter.

            On my way out, I waved goodbye at it. Goodbye Undertones. Goodbye Siouxie. Goodbye 1970s Organ Musak. When I hear those tunes again, perhaps when I'm gliding down the aisles at FreshCo or No Frills, I'll give my head a shake and wonder where, how and who I am. 

Next month -- The Closet.