Wheelie Bins -
Isle of Thanet Gazette 21st October 2007
Last week, on what shall now be known as Black Thursday, I backed out of my driveway at 7.30am and narrowly missed a large lorry. Its back was down and no fewer than seven council officials - three with clipboards - were surveying its load. I knew at once that life would never be the same again - our wheelie bins had arrived. I thought about lying across the pavement shrieking "I will not have them" - on the basis that the bins look ugly, sound complicated and, by the time their contents have sat about for a fortnight will soon smell to high heaven - but I was still in my dressing gown. I'd have done it anyway had I known the effect it would all have on my husband. Already a nuisance on the looking-over-my-shoulder and querying-my-domestic-routines front, the bins have turned him into a thing possessed. The man who could once be relied upon to display a healthy disregard for municipal systems and any sort of instruction from on high, was onto the instruction leaflets like a tramp on a kipper. (Leaflets, which, by the way, lack logic and appear to have been written by a half-wit. Why can plastic bottles go in the blue-lidded bin but not plastic tubs? Why does it say on one bin that bottles "cannot be recycled" and on the other urge us to take them to the public banks for that very purpose? And did whoever was in charge of checking the copy not notice that on one page of the "information pack" we are told not to use liners in our bins, while on the very next it suggests we buy some from the supermarket.) Much has been inscribed about the need to save the planet. Now I think it is time someone devoted their efforts to a study entitled Men Who Are at Home Too Much. My own basic research into the matter reveals that the male capacity for the anal employment of unnecessary domestic systems is almost limitless and leads to an increase in female stress levels. By 9am my husband had painted our house number on both bins - "in case someone steals them" (sorry?) - stuck the labels listing their required contents in place, and was preparing to test me on which receptacle was designated for what. An area of the kitchen was then marked off as a collection point cum collation area from where my spouse will oversee the correct distribution of waste items in his new position as Supervisor of Bin Protocol and Head of Wash and Squash. If any of my female readers are feeling any sort of envy at this point, can I just say that difficult as it may be to be married to a Neanderthal who will not even bring the washing in, you should spare a thought for those whose partners then want to colour-code it as well. One of my friends, who has asked to remain nameless, needed a larger glass of wine than usual after her husband announced his intention to improve their "towel management." It was bad enough, she explained in horror, when he was doing the laundry three times a day - sometimes before she'd even finished wearing it. Another's spouse restacks the dishwasher if the forks aren't all pointing the same way. In my house it can only get worse. Wheelies today - composters tomorrow. Him indoors has ordered two and is already watching the vegetables peelings with a strange glint in his eye. If you don't see him around soon, look in one of the bins...