When I first moved into this apartment, I noticed that 1. there’s a trash chute in the hallway and that 2. the opening for the trash chute isn’t actually big enough to put a single fucking trash bag through.
Which is when the baby thing came up. The realization that while living in this apartment, we wouldn’t be able to throw away anything bigger than a newborn baby, because that’s all that was ever going to fit down that hole.
And I mean, listen, before you freak out, I’m not saying I’m ever going to throw away an *actual* baby. I don’t even have a baby. I don’t even have access to a baby. And even if I did have a baby, and access to like 6 other babies, I wouldn’t throw any of them down the trash chute. It’s just a size thing. IT’S A SIZE THING.
The day after the baby thing though, we found our way to the trash room and realized that actually, we could just carry our non-baby sized trash down the stairs and put it in the dumpster ourselves. Which, okay, is awesome because at least we don’t have an entire apartment full of trash, but it’s also like, um, what the fuck?? Because why take the time to build a trash chute if no one in the entire apartment complex can use it for anything besides baby disposal?
Once in a while though, Jamie and I will get a small package in the mail (makeup, a sex toy, you know, the usual) and we’ll look at the empty box and scream, “IT’S SMALLER THAN A BABY!” and run and put it down the chute.
It happened again the other night. We were sitting on her bed, folding the laundry that we only do once every like four weeks and I was matching the socks together and freaking out about how I was maybe losing my mind because there were SO many socks that didn’t have matches and I tried over and over and finally I gave up and looked down at the ridiculous amount of pair-less socks and was all, “Jamie. Seriously. Jamie, look at this. This is the state of your life as a grown woman” and she looked down all skeptical and judge-y, like I’m the idiot who doesn’t know how to match socks with other socks and she sits and she tries and she’s holding them up and trying to make them fit together but they don’t fit together because it’s just a pile – I mean an actual PILE – of socks that don’t go together and she’s all, “What about these two!” and I’m like, “THOSE AREN’T EVEN THE SAME LENGTH” and she points to a few others and I’m all, “No. This one is wooly. And this one is tights!”
And we went on and on, trying to make pairs, circling back to the same fucking socks, yelling about how those two still weren’t the same length and how that one was STILL TIGHTS, until finally, we gathered them all into a big ball and walked them down to the dumpster, because the quantity of socks was > a newborn baby.
And I know, maybe we need to buy more socks. Or maybe we need to be put on some sort of trash baby watch list. Or maybe we need a new point of comparison. Or maybe we need to spend less time together because at this point we have our own language that’s so wildly offensive that we’re sometimes nervous about going out in public but I’m thinking that actually it’s fine because at least we still have enough social decency to create hand gestures for the really REALLY offensive things like the times we feel like we’re living in a trailer park or the times when we quote Katt Williams and wish we were black but I can’t do those hand gestures right now because I’m typing and oh my god please tell me you do things like this too so I don’t have to climb the long staircase down to hell all by myself.
Posted in: day to day shenanigans, san francisco, the nicole & jamie show
{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
That's a hot sock pile.
While only a baby may go down the shoot, I bet a smell worse than a baby's nappy comes up the shoot! Poor design!
I'd been pondering this very conundrum recently. I decided that if I win the lottery I'm going to throw away all of my socks and buy new ones that are all identical so I can just pick from the pile.
Not that I would need to win to lottery to buy all new socks – just why bother buying new socks when I'm 90% satisfied wearing mismatched ones.
Sigh. Either way, it's unlikely my feet will ever look quite right together.
if the baby would fit, than the baby's dirty diaper would too. just saying.
haha I have a sign language of sorts with my best friend too…. And wowsas. I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who has a collection of lonely socks bigger than a baby. Mine fills up an entire drawer.
Other things smaller than a baby you could put down there:
OLD sex toys (hopefully smaller)
period underwear that you never want to see again like IMMEDIATELY
pads…(hope you are saying that pads are for mormons and its weird that they even exist but if you did use them you could put them in there)
basically anything vomitous that you want away from your face right now.
that's all.
Everyone should mail their lonely socks to y'all so they can take a trip down the baby trash slide.
I'll gather mine tonight…
If you want another reason you're going to hell…you shouldn't have thrown the socks away. You could have used them as cleaning rags, or sock puppets, or…ok, maybe you can't re-use them, but you could have donated them to Goodwill or a local homeless man who could have used them as mittens or for things you don't even want to imagine, because seriously, when a good looking girl walks up to a homeless man and offers a pile of socks, what do you think is going through his head?
You're totally going to hell with me. It's going to be so much fun.
guess what – you don't need socks in hell, or so I've been told…
That's why I've mostly given up on wearing matching socks. For example, I am wearing one grey sock and one purple argile sock today. Whatev.
No wonder you're having trouble getting to sleep at night. If babies can fit down the shoot, what's to stop them from crawling into your apartment through it? You should get a gun.
I tried for a while just buying boring black socks in bulk that all matched, but it was hurting my soul. So I said fuck it, went to Sock Dreams online and ordered a bunch of fabulous socks. I am hoping that if my socks are fabulous enough, no one will care that they don't match. It's like– two different opportunities for Fabulous, one on each leg.
And seriously? If someone's gonna judge me because my socks don't match, I don't want to hang out with them anyway. It's like a litmus test, but with socks.
Fucking sock monsters. I think there needs to be a TAPS team to hunt them bitches down. And then they need to communicate how it's not cool to fuck with people and their socks. Seriously, someone needs to locate the "let's take one sock and drive everyone to throw babies down a trash shoot" portal.
I buy socks in bulk to avoid matching. Because I’m pretty sure I’d have an aneurysm if there was a sock without a match. A whole pile would be infinitely worse.
I’ve always wanted to have a secret sign language. But no one was ever smart enough to recognize the potential and just called ME the weirdo.
BFF private languages are the best.
HILARIOUS! I love how you can go from talking about an apartment and trash to babies. Love it
I can't help it, I really can't…
It's a trash CHUTE.
Oh my god YES! I *knew* that looked fucking weird but figured it's because all this talk of throwing away babies was getting to my head.
Everyday I'm hustlin', everyday I'm hustlin'.
Don't worry, I totally compare the size of babies to wildly inappropriate things. Pretty much daily. Comparing mailboxes to the size of babies is my favorite baby comparison. I.E.: You could fit a set of twins in that mailbox!
I ain’t got no room
Mornin daddy! time for some cereal!
Am I really a tiger/ I don’t feel much like a tiger/ maybe Im jus a vicious ass koala!
HAHA…Just after I finished reading this, I clicked over to Boston.com and saw "BREAKING NEWS: AMBER Alert issued for missing baby." Made me laugh. I sure hope you haven't enlisted a Bostonian to do your dirty work for you…
don't worry, my roommate and I make up words to cover up all the offensive things we say in public, enter the invention of "feep," short for fat peeps. yikes.
LOL. Awesome!
First of all, I adore you. Kathryn Bourell introduced me to your blog, and now my sister and I are completely hooked.
Secondly, here is why my husband, Matt, and I will be happily joining you in hell:
You know how when couples are together for a long time they do sickeningly sweet things like finish each others' sentences or say the exact same thing at the exact same time? The following is an actual conversation that my husband and I had last summer while walking down the street in our neighborhood in NYC. To give you the context, we had just come upon the creepy rapist van with no windows that belongs to one of our neighbors.
Me: "Ugh! That van is so creepy! Why would you ever want to own one?!"
Matt: "Well, you know, it could come in handy for a lot of things. It'd be really nice to have someplace else besides an alley to go when I kidnap teenage girls."
Me: "Well, sure. You want your privacy, so that makes sense. Also, if you wanted to blow something up, you could pack a heck of a lot of explosives in there, and those pesky, nosy cops wouldn't be able to see in."
Matt: "Totally. You could totally use it for that. "
*10 second pause.*
and then, in PERFECT UNISON, we both go: "Or to dump a body!!"
–>Insert sickeningly sweet look-exchange here.
Also, we are atheists. So, yeah. We'll be seeing you. And we better have glittery bunk beds, too, or I'm going to be very disappointed.
When I lived in my first apartment, the chute was def not big enough for a regular trash bag much less enough for a 30 gallon bag that me and my roommates used. I learned to use the opening and the sides of the chute as my own personal compactor kinda like cookie monster with cookies except with garbage. It was an art form. This was before recycling became mandatory and now I go down to the trash room anyway. What's worse, un-paired socks or leggings as pants? Haha– I repeat that phrase way too much:)
So, you should know that now I'm in platonic, non-creepy/stalkery girl crush love with you because you like Katt Williams enough to quote him/make up hand gestures.
Poor little Tink-Tink. lol
And now I'm going to hell with you. Can we at least hold hands on the way down?
I really love your blog but I need you to know that I love you even more because you like Katt Williams … I've seen him twice and if you haven't seen him live, YOU MUST!
You make my day everyday.
For the record, half the time trash chutes aren't even fully functional because of course someone who's lazy would shove an oversized trash bag full of the nastiest smelling stuff down there, knowing it would totally get stuck on the way down. Not that I would know anything at all about this…
Trash Chute? Just throw it out the window, it's waaay bigger.
Plus even if you have a toddler problem, you can go to "not having a toddler problem" very quickly indeed!
Also I'll be sending you my adoration in a > new born box
I knew this would make for a good read; with trash, and babies in the title together.
You two need a reality show.
Brave! I'm too scared to get rid of my pair-less socks. In case the pairs turn up. Yeah. In other news I spelled 'socks' like this: 'salks'. Huh?
It's all psychological…you have a thing for Jonas Salk and his polio vaccine…
What happens when you find the next mismatched sock? Will you always wonder if its partner went by way of the chute? This is the reason I am a neurotic pack rat.
God I love Katt Williams. And you. And now Jamie. I'm on the train to hell with everyone here.
Okay, so there's totally a dryer monster who eats socks. I simply DO NOT get it. I'm always a few socks short and there isn't a match and it also makes me sort of feel like a loser because I can't even wear matched socks! Ahh
Haha great article! just going to bookmark your blog for future reading
Wait. How big of a baby?
All I can think about is the first time I did laundry with my fiance when we moved in together – when I found out he fold socks by putting one inside the other rather than rolling the. Who does that?
A) you’re going to be sorry you threw away those socks when you open the sock balls you created with the ones you thought matched and realize that you mismatched
B) Perhaps a sock pile is bigger than a baby, but couldn’t you have disposed of the socks individually down the chute?
C) I bet you Katt Williams has thrown a baby down a trash chute.
Hell, I'm pregnant, and even *I* don't find trash babies offensive. Get a funny bone, people!
Also, I have an award for you over at my blog: http://veronicamarcettidimick.blogspot.com/2010/0…
Pretty much everyone does this. I've had that conversation about 20 times in the past 2 years all with different people. Socks suck, except when they can be thrown down a baby-sized trash chute!
I think this is a perfect form of measurement. Although now all I can hear in my mind is the song "Prom Night Dumpster Baby" from Family Guy!
My first apartment was in a converted sanitarium/tenement. When I told my roomate that our trashshoots were actually the old body shoots – because really, who wants to carry a stiff corpse down six flights of a spiral staircase – well, lets just say I found myself looking for a new roommate….
I bet she would have moved out faster if I mentioned dead newborn baby corpses.
Oh, and it really was an old body shoot – I wasn't making that part up.
You amuse me. I mean, who sizes up a trash chute and thinks baby?!? Please keep writing.
Private languages are the absolute BEST. My husband and I have our own weird language and then I have another unique language that I use with close co-workers. I fucking love it.
wow… i am dumb. it took me 5 miuntes to figure out that i needed to scroll down to the bottom to "post a new comment." anyway, i am constantly losing only one sock. it is so frustrating. i have had this problem my entire life! i am so glad someone else has this problem too. i really don't understand how it happens or where my other sock goes or why i don't seem to find socks randomly all over the place. but i have lost a least one hundred socks in my life. so annoying. i think the dryer eats them.
My wife and I have a system concerning the sock pile o' orphans…we ditch them all. ALL PAIRS AND ORPHANS. We feel it is only a matter of time before the pairs are eventually orphaned themselves….so, we send them to eternity together. Visually it is kind of like a Death Cab music video about socks losing their mates and following them "into the dark." Then we skip to the store and purchase some more white socks. Its grim and oddly morbid and highly inefficient but, at least we get some non-worn out socks outta the deal.
*I am going to add your blog to my blogroll. I think you need to be read by more people. You made my day better. It will be my altruistic moment of the day!
You really aren't alone.
Awesome writer by the way! I've become hooked. =) Really making work days that much more fun!
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