More trash talkin'

Here we are on a beautiful Saturday morning on our way to the dump, a.k.a. the pit of doom.

The truck is loaded with approximately three months' worth of trash, which is about the maximum amount 

I can accumulate in the garage before having to park the Ranger or the truck outside.

I've chronicled my disdain for the dump here ad nauseam. This disdain turned to abject loathing during my most recent trip. 

I sat in line for an entire hour, waiting for my turn to toss my trash in the pit of doom.

There had to be a better way. As I sat there stewing, it came to me ... trash compactor.

When I got home, I did my googling and learned that a trash compactor could reduce my volume of trash by 75%. 

That would mean instead of going to the dump four or five times a year, I would only have to go one or two times. 

Sold to the lady in the middle of nowhere! I ordered one online from Lowe's...

 ...and picked it up at the store this week. 

Here's a story I could never tell you while my dad was alive, since he was a faithful reader of the blog

 and I feared he would yell at me. My truck no longer has a tailgate. I lost it to a hay injury four years ago. 

The bed of the truck was loaded with hay, and I was pulling the gooseneck horse trailer loaded with hay, and when I turned, 

the gooseneck pushed down the hay in the truck bed and bent the rails and the tailgate would never close thereafter, 

so I removed it. Which isn't a big deal unless you're hauling something which might slide out, 

in which case you install a redneck tailgate (a big fat board that fits snugly against the sides). 

Anyway, I got the trash compactor home and unloaded it using the tried and true

"slide it down to the ground carefully without dropping it on your toe" method.

At that point, I figured the hard part was over.

 Wrong. Assembly was required. There were casters and lots of nuts and bolts involved.

But it went smoothly. I had the right sized socket and tightened down those 16 nuts so they would never come loose.

So I uninstalled all 16 screws/bolts/whatever, turned them over, and tightened the nuts again.

I'm quite sure I heard Dad laughing.

So there it is – the answer to all my waste woes.

Too bad all the packing materials are too big to stuff in the compactor.