comedyI’m The Only Bin In A 6 Person Share House

I’m just a bucket with larger sides after all.

Help me, oh dear God help me!

The days are long. The pay is laughable. The treatment is inhumane. I’m the only bin in a 6 person share house.

It didn’t always start out like this. The late 90s. It was a different time. People treated their bins with more respect. It had something to do with Clinton — there was a real ‘trash’ culture back then.

There were two of us in the 90s too. Me and Augustus — German design. Built for speed. Top shelf quality. I was from the Reject Shop. Made in Taiwan — never stood a chance. We were different, but our ideals were the same — to provide a home for the unwanted. A respectable pursuit, once upon a time.

Augustus went to a better place just before Y2K. Where exactly? I don’t know. Maybe back to Germany. Maybe to an incinerator. Either option would be better than being the live-in bin for 6 degenerate human waste manufacturers. That sounds harsh, yes — but you don’t know them like I do.

Garbage collection is weekly, but they don’t subscribe. It’s the only subscription they don’t have. Netflix, Disney, Prime, Stan, Hubi, Tubi, Boobie, but no no no — let’s draw the line at bin day! I’d take myself out but don’t have the ability of self-motion. I may as well be nailed to the ground.

I do admire their sometimes attempt to use me. Admire means resent, yes? One day in mid-June they’ll wipe off some grime caught in-between my lid hinges but won’t dare wash out the soup sloshing down in my corners. The scary part is that in their minds that small hinge wipe down means I’m now clean and can be left to continue to rot until mid-August, next year.

Around 2015 they stopped using bin liners all together and just started raw-dogging me, banging butter chicken sauce and fish skin in me from the 3-point line. The splatter alone. The splatter! I repeat, the splatter and the smell. The smell! You have no idea the smell… and the splatter.

My clout is dropping, quick. I get looks from the other bins. I see them sneer. What? Like they’re perfect! I blame my surroundings, my upbringing, my context dammit. I never stood a chance, growing up in the family I did. I was always going to be on the back foot. I’d say back wheel but my wheels were stolen years ago.

I sometimes think about Augustus. If he turned out better than me, I’ll never know. Well I guess I do know because no one could be worse off than me — the only bin in a 6 person share house.