Way back in Yore, and the days of it, society had a happy-go-lucky, it'll-sort-itself-out attitude toward pretty much everything. In order to find a period in history that was more deeply in denial, you'd probably have to go back to the Victorians, whose outward prudishness and conservatism was matched only by their depravity and their freaky-deakyness.
In 1963, lots of people had incinerators in their back yard, for burning leaves (okay, kinda bad), and for burning garbage (yikes).
YOU (Who? Me?) can cash in on a virtually untapped market with these almost
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Yep. It used to be a common thing for people to have their own little Barad-dûr in their back yard that would spew stinking smoke into the neighborhood of a bright summer's morn. People would burn whatever they want in them. Leaves, sticks, rotten food, old televisions, newspapers, worn-out pets. But hey, it was The Sixties. Something that went up in smoke was real gone, baby. Like, gone forever and nothing to worry about gone. What was the big deal? It's just one of a rich tapestry of things that we were kidding ourselves about at the time.
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| Great. The neighbors are getting rid of their used diapers. Cancel the block party. |
My grandma had an incinerator in her back yard. It was always just a curiosity to me. She never used it, so it was just this derelict monolith from a mysterious bygone age. My brothers and I would just sprinkle leaves into it through the rusty grate on top, because we didn't have video games yet. Once you watched the leaves hit the bottom, the show was pretty much over. Time to round up some more leaves! We really needed someone to invent video games.
We're much more "eco" and stuff now. We don't have incinerators any more because they're gross and bad for pretty much everybody. Now we have "fire pits". They're like a really big wok on little legs that you drag out of the garage when company is coming over. Sure, people (probably) don't burn garbage in them, but it's surprising that these are legal. I suppose the fires, when you consider the big picture, are pretty small and inconsequential.
Side note: Somebody needs to make a backyard fire pit that looks like a lidless, staring eye. I would find excuses to invite my friends over for a singalong around the fire if I had a Sauron fire pit in my back yard.
Yes, we're so eco now that people aren't allowed to get rid of certain things but once or twice a year. When we were clearing out my dad's basement, there were loads of cans of paint and varnish and stuff like that. Some of it was still good, and now sits in my garage on the Shelf Of Things That Are Useful But Are Probably Making Me Dumber By Permanently Damaging My Brain Every Time I Open The Can. Why, just last weekend, I used some of my dad's lacquer thinner to remove the sticker residue from a new lug wrench. "Fanks, dad! Dat racqer finner weally came in hrandy buh gruh wuh wuhwuh...."
Anyway, so there I was, stuck with a car's trunkload of what officially qualifies as "hazardous waste". Being all enlightened and responsible, I went onto my town's website to see what Enlightened and Responsible steps I should take to get rid of the stuff properly. My town collects stuff like this on a very special day that comes in the spring time. It was July. Great. Alternately, I could drive it several towns over and drop it off at a recycling center that wouldn't mind taking it off my hands. Fine.
So, load crap into car trunk. Drive an hour to the address using GPS. Drive up and down the road for fifteen minutes in the industrial park I found myself in, eventually pulling in to the parking lot that was at the exact address and street name as described on the website. It was a warehouse-looking place with forklifts and a couple of guys standing around at the loading door. Get out and ask them if this is the place. Guys look at each other and tell me they never heard of the place, and that they're sorry. Fuck. This.
So, after wasting three hours of a perfectly good Saturday morning trying to do The Right Thing, I wound up back in my garage, with a trunk full of original sin, having been screwed over by standard municipal buffoonery. That's what I get for trying to do the right thing.
So, apparently, every house needs to have a closet-sized corner of their garage piled high with old electronics and cans of semi-dried up paint, waiting for the one day a year when they can get rid of it. This is not a proper solution. Until cities make it practical and
easy possible to get rid of evil stuff, I'll keep distributing cans of used paint to neighborhood children, which are roughly hobbit-sized, telling them to run off and cast them into the fires of Mount Doom. Kids are spoiled anyway, and they need quests. So, I'm helping.
Here's a couple of clip arts for your ever-growing stash of stupid images, courtesy of us. First, there's the awkward-viewing-angle pointing finger. You know, sometimes, people ask you to draw a a hand pointing right at the viewer, and fingers never look right when drawn foreshortened. As you can see, this hand has the index finger bending slightly downward, and it looks - you guessed it - weird. Enjoy!
You should always avoid trying to use the pointing-to-you finger as a graphical element. The only place it was ever gotten right was Uncle Sam. Hmm. That gives me an idea...
Now that even makes
me laugh, and I'm a horrible person.
The other Graphic Gift is the elegant incinerator lady looking graceful and balletic as she dumps out her trash can. She makes it look fun and easy to burn filth in your own back yard. What's she dumping? Only you and Photoshop can decide! She's a PNG with an alpha channel background, and you're welcome!
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