/ trash

Don't tell 'accidentally sending your plans for Friday night to the entire company-wide message board,' but I have recently fallen in love with 'go on and on and on about how good your celebrity impression is and then bomb so awkwardly that the other person says "Yeah, that was pretty good," while you quickly change the subject to something slightly less subjective, like politics.'

I am in the midst of recovering from a cliche, you see. I grew up with pack rats, and so naturally throw everything away, can't hold on to a single thing. Just last month, I put all my soccer, baseball and high school debate trophies in the trash, as well as my Varsity letters, my typewriter, my computer, my childhood stuffed animals and a stack of books. Can you believe I threw away books? I realize how horrible this makes me, but if I were stranded on a desert isle and the only book I had was a 450 page manual describing all the features of Microsoft Excel 97, I would quickly bury myself in the sand holding a coconut, give my life to a future generation of trees.

In 1991, I bought a cheap plastic bowl, which throughout my bachelor years served no less than 45 functions, most, but not all, of which involved eating and washing. The orange tint descends from the very first box of generic macaroni and 'cheese' I bought to celebrate my freedom from dormitory living. I have had this bowl for 16 years. Key word: HAD. UGH.

There is no doubt that this bowl should have been thrown away years ago. In all likelihood, it should have been thrown away after its first use, a lesson many of us learned when Taco Bell switched from paper to those plastic 40 ounce cups that you could bring in for 25 cent refills if only they hadn't become permanent fixtures in your china cabinet.

Still. STILL. When you throw away something in a communal living arrangement, it is generally good practice to inform the owner of said object that you are about to break his heart.

Who knows? Maybe I would have even agreed to toss it in the trash myself. After all, I was just reading how lions will sometimes abandon their cubs when there is not enough food to go around, or when the babies too closely resemble their REAL father.