One of the hardest things I had to do on my first few months here in the US was throwing out perfectly good carry-out containers. Y'see they are not those styrofoam boxes we had back in PI, but black hard plastic with transparent covers. They almost seemed like Tupperware products to me. Eventually I was left with no choice when they stacked up to 2 feet high and kept on toppling over me everytime I opened the cupboard, with sadness and ridden with guilt, I had to let them go.

This kind of dilemma worsened when I started working. I remember on my first day at work my eyes almost popped out when Ali nonchalantly threw out a stack (about half a rim) of 11"x17" colored computer fresh print-outs into the trash. What ran inside my head was, "OMG, that costs P70+ each sheet in the Philippines, how much more here!" Apparently it's SOP. If the color is not right (or other mistakes of some kind) they belong to the garbage bin. Unless you want to risk using the wrong printout and do it all over again, which would cost the company more money.

Not only that, when we are comping (making samples for presentation purposes) we use a lot of our existing products either to comp on, or remove some parts from. For example, if we need a yellow spiral we go to the warehouse get a children's song book, take out the spiral or throw the rest away. Never mind if it's a really nice hard bound, glossy paged book with CD and tape.

So what do you expect this filipina to do? Of course I rescued the dismembered item, looked for other discarded spirals and, voila, I have a really nice song book set with a red spiral.

As you can see from the first picture above it didn't stop with the book. These are just a few of the items I saved from the office garbage bin which are now balikbayan boxed and sitting in my closet.

Another example of an american junk is my secretary (right photo). You'll never guess where we found it. In the backyard of our condo not far from the dumpster. It had a note taped on it: "Take me I'm yours." So Tom and I hauled it up to our condo. But since we moved to our new place Tom is now disenchanted and wants to discard it. Uh-uh, it may not be too appealing now, wait till I get around to doing some D-I-Y distressing and handpainting (what about a crawling ivy on an ecru background?), I bet I can sell a desk like that for a couple hundred dollars.

Where do other americans bring over their junk? At the famous Salvation Army for one. Tom hosted a golf tournament for his officemates Friday the other week and he got this gag trophy ($2) from their store. I told him it looks like a urinal (actually, it's a spitoon). He was thrilled with my description, the uglier the better.

American Junk = Smokey Mountain? Uh, no.

Currently listening to: tv news
Currently reading: Art Books
Currently watching: In Good Company