Yesterday my sister and I were sitting at a coffee shop in Oklahoma with two of my brothers, enjoying a few moments of downtime before I left for points north. After three-plus straight days of carting carefully saved garbage to the curb for pickup, we were a slap-happy group.
Somehow, the conversation turned to The Rapture, the evangelical Christian belief (which we generally don't share) that at Christ's second coming, the faithful will be brought straight to heaven. I expressed a wish that Jesus, instead of carrying people, would carry all the stuff in the house straight to heaven. My sister said it would be called The Crapture.
Which brings me to an always-invisible line, that between trash and treasure. My sister feels exultant when she's packing something and can find a packing box in her storage shed instead of having to buy one at the store, as her ex-husband insisted they do. I, on the other hand, found it liberating to cart to the curb a hundred cubic feet of boxes saved since 1967, some with other Crapture items inside and the rest too moldy and infested to recycle. But it would have been even better if my parents had junked and recycled their own stuff.
The crowning moment of the first half of the week's work was the appearance of the garbage men yesterday. We had stacked junk all along the front length of our lot. It was waist high and higher, extending back from the curb about six feet. My oldest brother had arranged with the city a once-every-six-months "moving" pickup, in which (we were told) they'd take everything at the curb, as long as loose papers were secured.
We could imagine, after three twelve-hour days of hot and sweaty work, the thrill of watching the dregs of the past disappear. In fact, during the work, it was the thought of that release that kept us going. It would be a cleansing moment, a time for us to honor our quirky parents and their capacity for retaining physical evidence of their memories. We would all move ahead with our lives, which for my brothers and sister consists of more days of throwing out stuff.
Then the doorbell rang. It was the crew foreman, explaining that they didn't have a work order for this unusual pickup so they wouldn't be able to take it. They drove off. My sister chased them down to find a phone number where my oldest brother could reach them or their boss to yell at them. She got them stopped just around the corner. They called their boss, who said "you can pick up anything that's boxed or bagged." Not what we were told. Not good enough. Not an order that would remove everything from the curb.
I'd been in another room, throwing out things I had once thought I might bring home, trying to apply the lessons of The Crapture. When I heard the news, I went charging out to the crew.
Now, most people who know me, if asked to describe me, would use words like "serious" and "quiet." I've never been accused of hogging the spotlight or engaging in Drama Queen hysterics. Calm and cool--you could even say disengaged--is my normal demeanor. But faced with the loss of our loss, this is how the scene at the curb went.
Me: THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THIS RIGHT.
Then I said some other stuff just like that only less shout-y. I was completely convinced that they would take our garbage, all of it, that very morning. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi, except on estrogen.
Faced with an angry woman whose voice was breaking, the crew foreman backtracked. They took our stuff.
But this victory was secondary. Here is the lesson, my friends: If you want to accumulate treasure, lay up treasures in heaven, not on earth. Or, if you prefer other language: of the "reduce-recycle-reuse-restore" quadrilateral, focus first on "reduce," and the other actions will be easier.
If we truly devote ourselves to this lesson, we can all experience the Crapture every day, here on earth.
