Thursday, December 03, 2009

The garbage can.......

I enjoy road trips, but for some reason, I turn into a pig. Or at least the car looks like the insides of a waste basket.

It took me 2 hours to clean up the car today, I find lots of stuff.

I could build a 8 by 10 deck outside on the wooden stir sticks that I found inside the car, the ones I take when I purchase my coffee.

I usually will add the sweeter in the store, but for some reason, take a few wooden stir sticks, "for the road"

What am I going to do with them? Who knows, it's the immigrant mentality genes that I was burdened with I guess.

There is a positive side to it,too.

I retrieved about 36 dollars of miscellaneous paper money, and a small almond can container of change that amounted to another 20 bucks or so.

So we can go to dinner with a few glasses of wine, with my new found riches.
I also had a large zip lock bag of artificial sweetener packets.

Why buy them when I can slip 3 or 4 into my pocket while adding a few to my coffee.
OK, maybe not 3 or 4 but 6 or 7.

I use them at home......kind of a reward for my allegiance to that particular coffee stop.
I have a lot of allegiances although.

I will never have to buy sweetener again. Not in this life anyway, as long as I indulge myself to a bold dark coffee now and then.
On the bad side, a few of those packages have given up their seams, and required a Dustbuster to visit a few of the cubbies that are in the car. I also found some Japanese Peanuts and a dozen or so Corn Nuts......

The Corn Nuts were stale.

Several interface cords for my Iphone, and earphones, charger cords and some cord for something I no longer own.
Lots of ATM receipts. Does anyone ever have to refer to those things?

I should just stop taking them, after all, what are you going to do, argue with the machine after it steals an extra peso or two?

I don't think so.

I hate the thought of trying to go to our bank, HSBC and try to explain that the machine shorted me a 500 peso note.

Oh Yes SeƱior, we will look in to it”. (I don't have that much time to wait for that investigation....)

Also found were dozens of autopista receipts....one never knows when you need to prove that you paid at the last caseta.

Lots of dried up candies, a few petrified sticks of gum and a lot of dust, including pet hair from our dogs.

I was also looking for the screw that came out of one of my eyeglass frames.....(I kinda doubt that I will even see that one....)

Well at least I don't toss stuff out the window, I leave that to the locals to do that!

You may wonder why it takes me hours to do this.

Well every bit of paper or business card that I find, I will usually read over and decide if it really is worthy of the trash can or not.

Such thorough scrutiny takes time.

Oh, and I had a coffee during that time too.


10 comments:

Bob Mrotek said...

"Also found were dozens of autopista receipts....one never knows when you need to prove that you paid at the last caseta."

Don't throw the receipt away until after you leave the autopista. Did you know that your toll includes insurance and that if you have an accident on the autopista you are insured and the receipt is your policy?

Tancho said...

Yes, I was told that, and was also told by a friend that it was almost worthless after he had an issue on one of the roads.....but yes we keep them until we have so many we toss them.

Thankfully we have never had any issues or problems.....

Don Cuevas said...

I was just reading the Thursday Pogue's Blogs email, which mentioned a $200, "Neat Receipts" scanner which is for nothing more than scanning your receipts and creating a retrievable PDF document. O.k. It scans business cards, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/technology/personaltech/20pogue-email.html

That's what you need, Tancho!

Saludos,
Don Cuevas

- Mexican Trailrunner said...

OMG. Stale Corn Nuts. (how would you know. . .)
Do you have any teeth left?

Tancho said...

Sr Cuevas, just what I need another piece of equipment.......no thanks I think I will succome to the old fashioned way...and not have CD's or other media to store my useless information.
Trailrunner....corn nuts are hard when they are fresh, and starting to get mushy and softer when old. But, the salt was still there...and I am a sucker for things salty...you know I have to keep my blood pressure up!

Tancho said...

Sr. Cuevas,
I took a look and based on his so-so review, I came up with another solution. In one of my digital pocket cameras, it has a document mode which straightens out the picture and adjusts the contract. So now, ( thanks to you ) if I need archiving, I will simply snap a shop of it, and that way either manipulate it or save it. Thanks!

Michael Dickson said...

I pity your wife.

Regarding the autopista receipts and the insurance they include: It´s for real, and it will pay.

But I still pity your wife.

Tancho said...

Felipe, I pity my wife too! But I also envy her! She has a wonderful husband!

Crissy and Keith, I am weening myself away from them, I now get Stevia power in the States and bring down enough of a supply. Maybe they will find it sooner or later down here.

- Mexican Trailrunner said...

Stevia powder is here. Check with your local health food stores.

Corn nuts get soft when they get old? Who knew. . .

Bob Mrotek said...

Tancho,

All this talk about garbage brought back a memory of a song that my father used to sing:

Go on home yer mudder's callin'
Yer fadder fell into da garbage can.
Go on home yer mudder's callin'
Dey come ta pick up yer ol' man!