Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Stolen Garbage.

Last night, after finishing up Season 3 of Dexter, I finished the stupid corner in the bathroom and sealed the drywall. Huzzah.

More importantly, Tuesday, in my neighborhood, is garbage day. As I do every Monday, I dragged the garbage down to the sidewalk, so it can leave my property for good. I found out over the course of the week that the garbage folks will take pretty much anything, including garbage, recyclables, appliances and yard refuse. Splendid. It just so happens that we had all of those things to dispose of. I dragged the garbage can, 4 palates (from the sod) a dishwasher and rolled the old fridge down for pick-up.

Here's a little note about the fridge: It had been sitting in an abandoned house for months and months. When I bought the house, I removed it from the house and set it outside, where it remained, unmoved, for another month or two. I don't know if you know much about refrigeration, but it basically keeps food fresher, a little bit longer, as bacteria and mold has a harder time prospering in frigid conditions. It basically slows down the decomposition process. The important thing to note here is that, since it doesn't come close to moving the needle on the kelvin scale, it doesn't stop it altogether.

Considering the process is slowed, not halted completely, things inside of a refrigerator, if left unattended, will still decompose. And considering that the previous owner left the home, and thus, the refrigerator, unattended for months on end, without completely cleaning out the appliance, you can imagine what kind of wretched foulness was left to breed and multiply inside. Needless to say, it was full of black mold and a stench that I cannot even begin to describe.

When I first opened the refrigerator, months ago, the putrid stink lingered in the air for minutes on end. It was, without a doubt, the worst smelling refrigerator I had ever smelled, and possibly in the world. And it took that crown before I left it outside in the elements, with its heat heat and moisture fluctuations, unplugged, for a month or two.

Now, I rolled that fridge down to the sidewalk where it remained for at least 7 minutes. Here's a picture of the sidewalk post trash dragging:


And here it is two hours later:


Can you spot the difference?

Someone actually took the fridge.

Not only did they take it, but they opened it up, stuffed all of the drawers and shelves into my garbage can, closed it and loaded it onto something. Provided that the person(s) had both eyes and a nose, it's safe to say that the person(s) also saw and, more importantly, smelled the fridge. They still took the thing! I don't care how great it looked (it didn't look great), or how free it was (very), once you crack the door even two inches, you know that this appliance can only bring bad things.

I can only assume that they vomited for the entire ride home, even if they loaded it onto an open air truck and they we're 14 feet away from the hermetically sealed fridge. Once they cracked that door, it was in their nostrils, heavily, for an hour.

This leads me to wonder what would have to be inside of a refrigerator to keep people from taking it. An active hornets nest? A murder of hungry crows? An angry bear? I wish I had another disposable fridge to find out...

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