Kitchen:Banquet of scrap metal

I picked up the phone this morning and dialed the number listed for the Bureau of Municipal Waste—the people who take care of our garbage. I expected the worst. I wanted to explain that I was a homeowner who was undertaking some renovations, would have a considerable amount of material to dispose of, and how exactly would I go about that? The stuff is too voluminous to just set out by the road and wait for the trash collectors to pick up. That’s not to say that I don’t do it anyway—setting out boxes of wrecked walls, sawed-off lumber, and the like. My theory is that—if I can disguise it as regular trash—maybe they’ll take it away. This mostly works; however, I’ve come to quickly realize that even a small room yields a prolific amount of debris. The bathroom is a good example of that—and I haven’t even finished tearing down the walls.

Here is what I expected when the person on the other end had finished listening to my query: She would respond with something that sounded like,
“Urble urble oorf. Urble oorf root. Root with urble powder extra urble. Hork. Hork. HOOOOORK!! Whereupon the phone would go dead, and the recorded message would come through the earpiece:
“If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. Operator 100054566.” Followed by horrific beeping noises.

None of that happened. The very person who answered my call, actually picked up the phone, had all the answers I was looking for. ALL of them. Her name was Ella, and she knew trash.

“What about some concrete?” I asked. “I might break up the front walk to pour a new one. It’s made of concrete, you know.”
“Concrete is free,” said Ella.
Free? This was too good to be true. Free concrete disposal! And I imagined this to be one of the more problematic things to be rid of. Then she took down my information, said that an inspector would come around to look at the work I was doing, would issue a permit for so many loads of material to be dropped off in my truck. It was all quite official.
“He won’t be able to make it out there for another seven to ten days,” she said.
“That’s quite all right,” I answered. I was still stunned, in shock really, that this woman was able to help me. Then she gave me directions—very detailed—to the big landfill I’d want to drive to in order to dump my material. She wanted to know about everything I would be throwing away.
“Carpet?”
“No.”
“Drywall?”
“Yes.”
“Wood?”
“Yes.”
“Appliances or metal?”
“I’ll take those things to the metal recyclers,” I said.
“Oh, yes—you do have a facility near you.” Ella knew her stuff.
“Windows?”
“I’ll try to recycle or give them away,” I said.
“Tile?”
“Yes, some tile. A little, not much.”
“Anything else you can think of?” She really needed me to be thorough and specific.
“Oh! Those linoleum things, you know, the floor stuff that comes in squares.”
“Floor tiles.” She knew all the right terminology.

After she gave me directions to the facility, she wished me a good day and signed off. If I ever get a government job, I want to work for the Bureau of Municipal Waste; it seems to be the best-run agency of the lot.

Later I went over to the house and started dismantling the metal cabinets in the kitchen. They were destined, along with the antique gas range that no one wanted and the refrigerators downstairs, to go to the big scrap yard nearby that collects cars, bulk metal, appliances and so on. I thought I would save the old cabinets, maybe dating from the forties or early fifties, judging by the design; however, they turned out to be in such poor shape that I just tore at them with my metal-cutting saw, pounded the crap out of them with my heavy maul, and cut away the cheap countertop with my circular saw. The cabinets, although rusted through in places, were surprisingly heavy. I cut the sturdy doors off their hinges, sawed through the metal bracing, and yanked one of the units off the wall, tearing a good deal of tile away with it. The cheap and ancient wallboard came away as well, creating holes in the wall over the sink. I planned to replace a good deal of this wall anyway, so this didn’t create too vexing a problem for me. I more or less expected it.

Later I boxed up much of the debris from the kitchen, putting the heavy tiles and bits of countertop into cardboard boxes and folding over the flaps. I carried it all out to the road, deciding to maybe spread it out a little, so that some of the material was out in front of my house, and some of it was in front of the house next door. It’s always fun to see exactly how much they cart away. I don’t want to overdo it, but still.