How often do you go through that black hole under the bathroom sink? You know, that one you toss half-empty lotion bottles and other random health-and-beauty products into? That crap piles up. "Experts" say you should clean out your medicine cabinet and other bathroom stuff once a year. I'm pretty sure we've been carting around some of this bathroom stuff since we left San Diego. (That was in 2005, right?)
I was squinting at expiration dates... does that say 2006? I found myself with handfuls of travel toothpastes--we had at least 13 of them. From all Mike's international travel, we have a half dozen of those little travel kits from the plane. I scrounged through them for toothpastes, lotions, and ear plugs (some of that stuff has to come in handy some day).
Did you ever look for an expiration date on a toothpaste? I didn't even know there was one. But there is. Most people probably don't have 3 years' worth of travel toothpastes sitting around though, so expiration dates on them are a moot point.
And speaking of toothpaste, if you ever find yourself face to face with vanilla flavor, drop it and run. You're better off not brushing at all. It's like brushing with frosting.
I'm of the frame of mind that anything we haven't unpacked or used since the last time we moved probably doesn't need to be moved again. I wish I'd come to this great epiphany before Mike left, because now I'm the one juggling a handful of travel toothpastes.
I also wish that for just one week I had 7-year-old children instead of 7-year-old cats. That way I could put them to work with some of this rummaging. (And it would be a hell of a lot easier to get them onto an airplane.)
3 comments:
My husband, cat, and I just moved cross-country. Throwing away tons of that stuff was a cathartic experience. Sure, I could have brought it and saved money on replacements, but silly thing is, for every four of five less-than-half-full bottles of stuff I hadn't touched in at least three years, I only had to buy one new one. Yay!
I just did this! Is it sick that I LOVE cleaning out the under part of our sinks? I LOVE IT!
I find it oddly freeing and comforting to sort through samples from reviews, old travel items and various empty lotion bottles. I get some sick rush putting it all in the recycling bin too.
I'm really weird and think only about waste when I toss out mass quantities of stuff when we move, which is often...even as a kid, I thought it was a terrible waste that other kids left lockers full of school supplies on the last day of school. I hate seeing people moving out of places and tossing away stuff that they're just going to buy again on the other end.
I just think of the entire chain of production for modern consumer products, and the end result of stuff just piling up endlessly in landfills, and I feel horrible.
This is a very, very bad trait for someone who moves a lot. I think it's actually somewhat genetic. And it accounts for much of Steph's frustration.
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