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No, it is not nugatory

By Laurel Borrowman
Life & Style Editor

I have way too much stuff. You
probably do too. Stuck in Purge-atory
is a weekly chronicle of the quest by

my roommate Emily and I to get rid of
extraneous excess in our lives by giving
away or throwing out one thing every
day until the end of time.

hrown off as you may be by
ik week’s headline, I assure

you nugatory is relevant.
The screensaver on my computer
is a word-a-day type thing, where
an interesting and usually obscure
word scrolls across the screen,
stops, and the definition fades in to
readability.

A few days ago, I was on the
phone with my stepmom, perched
in front of my laptop, and the word
“nugatory” scrolled by. I laughed
out loud and made a note to look it
up.

nugatory adjective; futile,
trifling, worthless.

Sometimes when things get
tough on this path to minimalism,
Iremind myself that Purge-atory
is no nugatory endeavour. Also,

I found a legitimate word that
rhymes with Purge-atory, and
although only one of the pair is an
actual word, let’s not forget that
rhyming is fun.

Which brings me to this week’s
purge. It’s something that I take

for granted because of where I live.
It’s a thing (in this case, massive
heap of things) that can accumulate
enough to fuel a rogue, back alley
economy. It’s the second-best thing
about drinking. It’s the life blood
of so many elementary school
fundraisers.

Empties.

What a way to be reminded of
how much we waste, we produce,
and how easy it is to dispose of
said waste when living in the city.
The last time I collected empties
with the intention of doing a bulk
return was around this time last
year when I was beyond broke. I,
Laurel Borrowman, was returning
both books and bottles for cash.
Prior to that, it was probably for a
bottle drive back in grade school,
fundraising for something like
camp or getting the class to buy a
log in a park or something.

Since then, my reasons for
discarding these “gold-mines” of
trash have been twofold. First, I
don’t have a vehicle to transport
a pile of empties. The few times |
have taken a load up to the liquor
store on foot, I admit I was red in
the face, as the distinct clashing
of empty glass and aluminum
punctuated my walk. I needed that
$2.50 though. Second, my back alley
is prime real estate for the local
hobos. If I place even one can by
the dumpster, it’s gone in less than
60 seconds. Contrary to the cliché,

Life&Style

I don’t think every penny counts.
Nor do I think every nickel counts.
My clean home counts, and in turn
we fuel the back alley economy.

However, a few months ago
Emily and I had a houseguest
who told us how much money
she parlayed into a vacation from
simply collecting and returning her
recycling for the deposit for a few
months. It was sickening! Here we
were drinking away, not realizing
the riches we could amass if we
simply bagged those things up!

So we did. We kept our stash
in the basement, and it grew.

And grew. It began to take on a
heaping life of its own. And it

grew. Coordinating our one friend
with a car to transport the clutter
proved difficult. So it grew. Then
we thought it would be just plain
disrespectful to put that many gross
containers in anyone’s vehicle (if
they would even fit at all).

Luckily, over two months into
Purge-atory’s antithesis, Emily’s
mom came for a visit from her
hometown in southern Alberta. In
true prairie form, she arrived in
a large pick-up truck, boasting as
much hauling capacity as our little
bike-riding minds could imagine.
Peggy saved the day. We bagged
everything up, and no joke, it filled
the bed of a Chevy FZ8945738, or
whatever.

I understand this is a bit
anticlimactic, because we didn’t

 

even get to waltz into the bottle
depot to watch the cash register
beep away as they tallied our
treasure. No, Peggy has taken the
empties back to Alberta where she
will pass them back to a kids group
that will change them in for a small
fortune; or at least a couple bucks.

That said, she did compensate
us fairly—or was it? At five cents a
pop, maybe it was only nine bucks
altogether—with a flat rate. Either
way, we'd still invest it in more
beer. Which will just accumulate
more empties.

I think we just discovered
perpetual motion! At this rate
though, it turns out that collecting
with the intent of cashing in is
indeed a nugatory task. I think we'll
just stick with the alley.

This week:

1 truck bed full of empty bottles
and cans (100? 200? 600 empties?
Let’s just say lots.)

For the sake of the running tally,
let’s split the different and just
count 14.

Days in Purge-atory: 107
Items purged this week: 14
Weekly target: 14

Total items purged to date: 340

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