Freegan Microwave

It's been hard to keep up on the posting lately. I teach from 9-1 on MWF this semester and I tutor on Tuesdays (and soon also Thursdays) from 9-2. This means I have to use most of my time before 9 on the computer prepping for class. It also means that I don't want to hang around after class to play around on the computer. I guess one day we'll get a laptop. I imagine once David will want one once he starts his dissertation. Anyhow, back to blogging and such. Recently, my friend, Elisabeth,suggested that I get on Facebook. I know I should because I already have an empty profile and many of my friends are on there. Yet I worry that if I keep a blog, converse on myspace, and then start monkeying around on Facebook, I'll have to quit my job to become a full-time elecrtonic social networker. I've heard it doesn't pay much.

Well, onto the title of my post. Nope, I'm not angry at our microwave. In fact, until Sunday at approximately 11:30, we didn't have a microwave. As we were walking back to our apartment after church, we happened upon a microwave sitting out on the curb across the street from our building. I wanted to pick up this microwave and take it back to our apartment, but I was paralyzed by the fear that I would look like a stupid, poor trash picker for the thirty seconds it would have taken me to walk it across the street and into our building. Luckily, David was not hindered by this fear. He picked it up and we went to our apartment to see if it worked. It actually does work to our surprise. I cleaned it thoroughly, but it still smells like a sickening combination of all the foods that have ever been prepared inside of it. Think of the microwave in the break room of your first job that no one ever cleaned. I hate the microwave smell. But our freegan microwave does work and the smell, which I think most microwaves that are not cleaned daily acquire, does not affect the taste or our food, so it's a keeper.

If we had done this five years ago, it would have been called trash picking, but today it has a much hipper, cutting edge, and socially aware name: Freeganism. Vegans, who, in my experience, are always looking for ways to make their eating routines more bizarre and are also looking for ways to whine more frequently about how hard it is to live under self-imposed dietary restrictions, have added a new element to their stringent practices. Some feel that even if they eat a vegan diet, the money they spent on that food may have gone to people who firebomb duck ponds, cut down redwoods to make a single toothpick, or majored in something besides peace studies in college. In order to insure that their money does not go to Hoggish Greedly types, freegans rummage through the dumpsters of supermarkets and other stores to provide food, clothing, and furniture for themselves.

And although I poke fun at their ideology, I have to agree with freegans in basic principle if not in practice. Our country is incredibly wasteful. We throw away things if they are not absolutely perfect. And we do this because we know that we can go to Wal-Mart and replace whatever it was with another poorly made model for $2.88. We surround ourselves with stuff and then make believe that the stuff defines who we are or makes us better people for owning it. But I'll get off my soapbox because I am equally annoyed by the people who treat me like I just killed a small business owner's baby because I went to Starbucks.

Well, our freegan microwave rocks. And kudos to the vegans and freegans for finding a way to make eating more difficult and more idealistic yet again. I am happy to have benefited from another person's trash- even if I made my husband do the fetching.