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So out here in the country, people have to take their household trash and recyclables to county dump stations. There are several. The one we most often use is 2 miles away, right next door to a little grocery store that serves breakfast or lunches.

Question: if you lived like this and you wanted to start your day by getting a cup of coffee and sandwich at this store, would it occur to you to grab the full bag of plastic or glass bottles stored in plain view in your kitchen, or to pull the generally full commercial-size trash bin liner so you could take your trash out, since you're going there anyway?

Asking because I need to understand why that has never happened here in 27 years unless it was my idea. Just...WTAF?

[This message edited by Superesse at 1:25 PM, Wednesday, May 29th]

Well, I would definitely take the trash with me but my H would either forget or leave it and plan on taking it next time.

He takes the trash out but I don't think he has ever emptied the small trash cans throughout the house. I don't know if he just doesn't think to do it or if he thinks why bother if they're not overflowing. Maybe he knows the trash fairy comes and takes care of it.

Years ago we were in marriage counseling and I brought up the fact that he will do things but always do them half assed. I used the garbage as an example of something he does but doesn't do completely. The counselor stuck up for him and said "some of us notice things first." If the trash piling up bothers me than I should empty it. My opinion is if the trash is your job than empty all the cans and take the kitchen trash out. I couldn't believe this had to be an issue with grown adults. It seems obvious to me and if he told me it bothered him that I wasn't taking all the trash out, I would just do it.

I feel your pain.

I couldn't believe this had to be an issue with grown adults.

Thank you zebra!

He takes the trash out but I don't think he has ever emptied the small trash cans throughout the house.

My. Life.

Also, takes out the recycling but never picks up the odd recycling stuff that hasn't made it out to the bins yet like there may be a can sitting on the counter waiting to be taken to the garage. Never takes out the paper bin from the office. And never flattens a box, just throws it in the general area where I've put the other flattened boxes. And I probably wouldn't complain about this here IF he hadn't have given me a grandiose speech one day 100 years ago (before recycling was really the thing it is now) about how everyone should be responsible to recycle. Now I realize that means everyone ELSE.

I'm guessing this is the kind of person who also wouldn't notice if there was something at the bottom or top of stairs that needed to go to its other floor?

I definitely would be taking the trash to the dump. In fact, in our metro area, some of the suburbs do not offer town pick up, nor do they have contracts with any of the various companies that provide it. If you want trash pick up at your home, you have to engage the services of a trash hauler, and there are several to pick from. The only down side to this is, none of them seem to pick up on the same day. So on any given day, as you drive down streets in our town, you'll see garbage and recycling bins out at the street. I wish all the haulers would have the same day for pick up so the other six days of the week, you wouldn't see the garbage cans.

But I digress - we are not in the country and our transfer station is about three miles from us in a direction we rarely travel, so we chose to have weekly pick up. But many people choose to haul their own to the station. I'm guessing we have plenty of families in our town where one adult makes this more of a priority over the other adult.

LOL, I just saw a Facebook meme that said, "Remember that 'nagging woman' is a myth made up by entitled men who don't like being reminded to do what they should be doing without reminders."

Trash mountain is a 40 minute drive so we get weekly pickup of trash and recycling. From experience from the trip the house to the cans in the driveway, my wife would be the one that takes it daily. I would be the one that would take them generally full and stuffed down a few times.

[This message edited by grubs at 11:49 PM, Saturday, June 1st]

Grubs, that sounds about like it, take it when it's full, makes sense. We have a German Shepherd girl dog whose favorite hobby is rooting through the plastic bottle collection under the sink, and chawing off the caps and rings, biting the necks into bits and spitting them out all over the carpet in the Foyer. Ouch in bare feet. So every day I'm patrolling for ruined plastic and the bin gets full, which invites the girl to "go shopping" and the H sees it not.... :o

When I was married I did everything but the trash. I refused. His ONLY job was to get th F'ing trash. I would let it get to overflowing and gross, tie it up, and then put it in front of his bathroom door. He got pissed the first time I did it. I completely went exorcist on his ass and warned him if he ever thought to bitch about it again look in the F'ing mirror. After doing all meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, diahwashing, lawn maintenance, vehicle maintenance (including his), child care, paying bills, making all appointments, etc., you getthe picture, I absolutely refused to do the trash. It would sit there and sit there some more. He usually got cussed out. Wow, all these years later I can finally laugh about how pissed he would get me. 🤣

Yep, still trying to figure this one out. See if I'm expecting too much, y'all!

As I explained, our county asks us to recycle all plastic bottles, tin cans, aluminum cans and glass bottles. Also cardboard. At the collection station, there are 2 large truck containers, one for the cans and bottles, the other for cardboard, plus the compactor for garbage and general household trash.

Here at this old farmhouse we renovated, we kept its commercial 3 compartment stainless steel kitchen sink with deep well sinks and wide drainboards, as we liked the utilitarian look and it works well. For trash, we have always slid a large round plastic trash container under the left sink drainboard that takes a 55 gallon drum liner and gets pretty full, pretty quickly. With the drain piping and trap visible below the center sink, I put a 1940's vintage red cola cooler like the kind used on airplanes, just to hide the pipes. It adds charm and color against all that bare stainless steel. On either side of the red metal cola cooler, underneath the other sink compartments, there's room for a shallow plastic bucket to hold bottles or cans, and it is usually brimming over with a bag of them. If we have any cardboard boxes, we slide them underneath the right sink compartment, out of our foot traffic zone.

Yesterday, under the right side of the sink, we had a pretty big cardboard box with another smaller box stacked inside it, 4 feet away from the big trash can. I was sleeping around the corner as H said he was going up to the country store for his morning cup of coffee, sandwich and chit chat. Since our dump site is right next to that store and we were nearing overflowing trash and recyling in the kitchen, I spoke out "Could you please take the trash then?" He said he would.

When I got up a bit later and went into the kitchen, I saw the trash can liner had been pulled, the bag of bottles was gone, BUT THE CARDBOARD BOXES WERE STILL UNDER THE SINK! WAAAAA????

Now I ask you all, what is wrong with this picture? (I actually had thought "Should I go so far as to remind him about the cardboard, too?" But then I said to myself "He's a grown up. I am not somebody's Mom. I'll have to assume he understands..." Seems like it's always a no-win for me.

Is this Passive Aggression or an inability to see any wider than what is directly in front of his nose? For something he knows that we take there. Oye. I'm getting worried about cognitive decline. Is there any better explanation?