When recycling first began around here years and years ago, I remember going to a local collection area where you could bring your recyclable items and they would actually pay you the going rate per pound for what you brought. That kind of arrangement disappeared, probably because there wasn’t enough profit in it for them. But collection bins like in this photo began to appear in different locations throughout the community, and even though I wasn’t getting paid any more, I started using ones close to me, as recycling was the right thing to do. Now you can get personal recycling containers provided by the waste collection company that are a little larger than the normal size garbage can. More and more people seem to be getting those and you see them out on the street every other week where they are collected on the normal “trash day”. That service costs about four or five dollars a month, which isn’t a whole lot for the convenience of just wheeling the container to the street. For some reason though, I’ve been resistant to the idea of paying someone else to make money off of my recycling efforts. It’s not the money…it’s more the principle of the thing. So I take recyclable items every week or two when I’m going in the direction of the collection bin anyway. Efficient use of gasoline I figure. The two containers I have fit perfectly side-by-side in my trunk when closed. I’ve been happy with this arrangement for years. The other day though, I was lifting the container to dump it in the opening, and it was wet from the snow…and it actually slipped OUT of my hands and fell inside the bin! The collection bin had just been emptied and my container landed on the bottom and bounced really far away from the opening, way out of reach. Great…just great!! Even if I wanted to jump inside the filthy bin after it, I wasn’t positive I could get out of the thing afterwards. I actually thought about it, but I had good clothes on too so I couldn’t try that. I studied it and fussed a while as I couldn’t see any way I could reach it. I did NOT want to leave it there inside but felt there was no choice. Then, out of the blue, some sort of instinctive, creative powers took over. I pulled out my jumper cables from the spare tire well where I keep them. I thought I might be able to make a combination lasso/fishing apparatus out of them? The handles of the metal clamps angle backwards from the ends of the cables to resemble sort of a hook. After several tosses, I managed to snare the edge of my container…and carefully, slowly, pulled it closer toward the opening. Then, I grabbed the car jack crank handle which is a little over two feet long and has a small hook on the end that inserts into the jack when you want to turn it. The jack handle was JUST long enough to reach and hook the lip of the container and pull it up to the opening…where I grabbed it myself. Gotcha! Catastrophy avoided. I had a good laugh to myself about it as I drove away, and mentally celebrated the creative use of what I had available. Another one of life’s little victories. Of course I forgot about how stupid it was to drop it in the first place.

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