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It started with some childhood experiences. My sister had all kinds of plush especially stuffed animals. When she got some I insisted on getting one as well. I ended up with several but she had most of them. Usually once or twice a year we would do a cleanup of our rooms and play areas. Tossing the junk that accumulated and thinning out any old toys. Depending on how messy things were we might just have to straighten up and throw out a little junk or if things were cluttered we had to fill a certain number of bags based on how messy things were. I remember my sister had to fill up three bags one time she had a lot of paper and junk which got her to about 2 bags but had to throw away some of her stuffed animals that were ratty as well as a few of her dolls. She was a bedwetter so to fill the bag up a little faster she emptied her pull-ups into the bag saving her a stuffed animal or two. I was the one who did the garbage and had to take the bags out to the garage then later the curb. I used this to save a few of her stuffed animals. Something about her plush and a wet diaper together stuck with me. A few years later I saw her going to her room with the roll of garbage bags. I asked her what was up and she said she was getting too old for her stuffed animals and was going to get rid of most of them. I couldn't resist helping her. She had pulled them off her bed and shelf if it hit the floor it was trash any she wanted to keep she put in a box. I got to her room and saw the pile on the floor she handed me a bag and told me to just put anything on the floor in a trash bag. We sat there on her floor just putting her dolls and plush in garbage bags for about a half hour. To my horror all of her stuffed animals except one or two were on the floor. I brought up the times the three of us played house and baseball with them. She just laughed and said yeah good times as she shoved them into garbage sacks to be thrown away. I remembered the lengths she used to go to avoid getting rid of them and now she was just cheerfully tossing them all in the garbage. I was horrified but also thrilled at the same time. I tried to drag it out it was hard to put them in the garbage bags my sister didn't have a problem with it at all. She would have bagged them all up in about 5 mins but I did most of the bagging letting her sort through a few remaining items most of the time. When it was all over there were around 8-10 bags of dolls plush and clothes and accessories. She was finally outgrowing her wetting down to an accident or two a month so she disposed of any remaining pull-ups which she had long outgrown as well as her goodnites. When they were bagged up I offered to take them to the garage but she said she would just help me take them to the curb since it was trash night anyway. We each too 2 bags and walked out the front door to take the doomed Stuffed animals to the curb. At the time we had BFI doing trash pickup and they leased a tote which I rolled out to the curb while she got a few more bags. I was able to fit a few of the bags in the tote but the rest were piled up next to it. Mom helped her out with the rest while I was getting the tote. This was early afternoon and I spent the rest of the day staring at the pile of stuffed animals plotting their rescue and hoping no one took them before dark. (I hid most of the plush in the tote hoping they would be safe from pickers and put a bag of trash on top of their bags. The pile drew some of the attention of some of the other girls in the neighborhood while everyone was outside playing and a few of the boys in the neighborhood tore open a few of the bags making a small mess.
That mess gave me an excuse when I took the rest of the trash out that night I was able to linger under the excuse of cleaning up the pile and re bag the stuffed animals letting me bag the ones I wanted in one bag and leaving the others. I couldn't take too many because mom and sis would notice if the pile was gone before the truck came the next afternoon. I used an old trick from my sister putting some of my goodnites and regular trash in the bags to fluff them up. I was able to save the 3 bags of plush from the tote by leaving it half empty figuring no one would notice and skimmed off another bag or so from outside the can saving most of the stuffed animals and carebears as well as some other baby dolls. The closet in my room connected to a bigger closet that went under the stairs. No one used that part so it was the perfect hiding place.
Next morning I got up and waited around for the truck. I felt bad for the stuffed animals and dolls but was excited to see the truck get them too. My sister got up and mentioned she was having second thoughts. I didn't want her to change her mind and discover how many were missing though I could blame it on trash pickers but didn't want to tell her why some bags had wet diapers in them. She drooped the subject and the morning went along. Late morning I heard the truck and went outside to watch it from the yard. I also had a wild idea I had taken one of the stuffed animals that i did not care as much about and pee'd in its diaper I put the plush on top of the pile when the truck was a few houses away. When the driver pulled up I watched him just toss everything in the truck with no compassion or mercy to him these cute playthings were just another bag of garbage.
The whole thing was over in no time and he was on to the next house. I saw a few poking out from under the blade. My sister asked if the garbage had been picked up a bit later and I told her yes she seemed revealed that the temptation was gone. I started collecting plush in earnest poking around other peoples trash and even hitting garage sales.
Over the years I managed to buy or save well over 100 of them and my closet area was packed. No one came in my room so I started putting them in there as well. My mom knew I collected them but didn't really know how many I had and she kind of gave up on keeping my room clean. Fast forward a few years mom hinted she would like my room straightened up and was going to need the space in the closet under the stairs. I kept expecting to come home from school one day and find everything gone so finally over break I decided to clean up. I spent the weekend straightening up the ones in my room. I started a keep pile and throw away pile the keep and think pile ended up being almost all of them. I kept putting it off till the day before garbage day. I knew I couldn't just throw them away when I was at school and miss it. Mom gave me a box and told me to focus on the keepers and she would throw away the rest if I wanted her to. I had my own keep box and filled it up first then started sorting finally my sister offered to help. She was a ruthless sorter as I knew from the past. I made a definite keep pile of a few then she suggested the game she would toss one then I would either toss or save one. Every time I saved one she got an extra toss so I save 1 she throws one away I then takes her normal turn to throw away one. I secretly loved this idea. I also intended to take pictures of them going in the bags to remember them and the trashing process. As we did it she made comments about how familiar some of these stuffed animals were. I admitted that I had saved some of the ones she had thrown away years ago. I also planned on saving quite a few this time. I would need a better spot was going to use the trunk of my car for now. As the bags were filled I took them to the side of the house for now plotting the rescue later. At one point in the sorting my sister tossed in one of my favorite Stuffed animals (
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rpzxz5m2mmrjhk4/1233548745612.JPG?dl=0 ) it was one I had found walking home poking out of a garbage bag, which surprised me I was positive I had put her in a save box earlier but either she fell out or my sister took her out of the save box I had stashed. I went to take her out but my sister called me on it telling me she knew that she came out of someones trash turns out she knew the girl who threw it away. I was not too happy but knew there was time to pull her out again. We took a brief break while she changed my cousin's poopy diaper. When she had put the clean one on she tossed the dirty one in can on top of the stuffed animals. I told her to take it out and throw it away in the diaper pail but she said that this garbage bag was as good as any and its not like there is a special pickup for old plush and it was going out sooner anyway. This was all true but we both knew she did it on purpose she wanted to make sure I wouldn’t try to take her out of the trash this time and what better way than to throw a dirty diaper on her. The back and forth continued until we neared the end I was pretty much out of keep space and filled up the final few bags with some I really wanted to save making sure they were together so it would be easier. When we were out of bags I tried to call it quits but my sister pulled the liner from the diaper pail complete with dirty diapers and used a diaper box for the rest. They all ended up piled next to the house. We did not have a tote at this time cause they were not required by waste management and it was cheaper to just buy cans than lease a tote. I left the stuffed animals and went inside to straighten up the rest. I snuck out and saved a few but my sister caught me walking back for more so I had to abort. No biggie I thought I can do it that night when taking them to the curb. Little did I know that later that evening my mom and sister took them all out to the curb. I took out the final bag of real trash but my sister kept an eye on me. She told me she had a bag count. Essentially saying I will know if any are not there. There was a rain that evening so I knew the trash pickers would not take any. I plotted to rescue some the next day before pickup but my sister was outside so no way to do it. Our house is right near the end of the route I watched them do each house as they got closer getting a sick feeling as I could hear it crushing the trash . I decided that if I couldn’t save them then I would be the one to put them in the truck. I ran out as the truck pulled up. When it pulled up I could see the truck must be almost full. The compactor barley made it back up the truck. As the driver got out he said that's quite a pile its going to be a tight fit. I got my hopes up saying if you don't have room just take the cans the rest can wait till next week. He said that stuff should compact pretty good my truck can make t fit. Ill just have to do a few bags at a time. I told the driver that these were my old toys and I would like to be the one to do throw them in He said sounds good you load ill pack. He said to put the bags in side by side since the hopper only had room for one bag deep. I heaved a big sigh and picked up the first bag and gently set it into the truck the bags slid into the hopper pressing up against the blade with the crushed garbage poking out. One by one I loaded the bags containing my beloved stuffed animals into the back of the garbage truck I felt a strange sensation that got stronger as I set each additional bag in the truck. I reached down to grab a bag and place it in the truck realizing as I moved to put it in the truck that it was the bag containing some of my favorite plush animals and some very dirty diapers. The hopper could only hold about 4 bags at a time so he said “Hold up a second I need to make some room” he pushed the blade forward to flatten them then raised the blade back up and opened it to scoop them in. I wanted to scream for him to stop but it was too late. Tons of compacted trash fell into the hopper on covering my beloved toys. I could see all the crushed garbage and it was a warm day so it was very stinky. I stood horrified and transfixed as I watched the blade come down pulling my stuffed animals into the truck. I could hear the crunching of plastic eyes and the hissing of air and the pressure from the blade mercilessly crushing my stuffed animals grinding them in with the rest of the garbage. After loading a few more bags he began another cycle. The previously crushed plush were released and allowed to fall back into the hopper along with an array of nasty trash. The force of the blade had torn open the loosely tied sacks causing the stuffed animals to spill out. I was able to get a good look at several plush and after only one cycle they were already in sad shape. My favorite stuffed animal's eye was broken and his fur was stained red and brown, probably from some soda and sauce from the trash mixture. The bag of stuffed animals and diapers was pinched directly under the blade and the force caused several of the diapers to explode mixing their contents with the plush. The stuffed animals were flattened and stained with the contents on the now exploded diapers. No turning back now I thought after seeing the shape the stuffed animals were in. As the blade came down and drew them back into the truck, I knew that to it my plush were nothing more than garbage to be crushed. I picked up another bag and as I set it in the truck I could hear the faint hissing and crunching as the blade gave the stuffed animals a good crushing it tore one of the bags and a few of the plush poked out from under the blade. This was the bag with my favorite stuffed animal and the poopy diaper. I could see his crushed head and arm and part of the diaper poking out and he was now also stained with poop and pee soaked diaper gel. No longer holding any illusions about what was going to happen to my Stuffed animals I began hurling the bags into the truck as if they contained nothing but common trash. My sister was right there was no special pickup for toys and my once beloved toys were now just mangled disgusting garbage. The garbage man emptied the cans dumping our household trash on the last of the stuffed animals then pulled the lever beginning the final crush. I watched as the previously crushed stuffed animals and garbage come down and mix with the garbage below. The compactor blade came down yet again and they disappeared into the truck. As the truck pulled away I could see parts of them sticking out from under the compactor blade. I was numb as I watched the truck pull away only and only beginning to come to terms with seeing all my toys crushed