Modern Problems; or, Into each life, some acid rain must fall
As a computer geek, I think I may be a bit more sensitive than the average bear when it comes to the nasty chemicals lurking in our lives.
Old TVs and computer monitors contain cathode ray tubes, which are full of lead. LCD displays, such as you might find in a laptop or a flat-screen TV, are backlit with fluorescent lamps, which contain mercury. Thermostats and watch batteries also contain mercury. Camera batteries contain lithium. Easy to buy; hard to get rid of. You can’t just put heavy metals in a landfill or an incinerator.
When we lived in Salem, they had one “hazardous products day” every year. It just so happened that it was always in the summer, always on a Saturday; in particular, it was always on a beautiful summer Saturday when we’d been invited to go sailing with Sarah’s parents, and we had to leave early to catch the tide through the Hole.
We never did make it to a hazardous products day. Amazingly enough, sailing always won out. By the time we left Salem, we had quite a large collection of old, broken-down TVs, computer monitors, and camera batteries.
Luckily, our new town has a hazardous waste recycling center, open every Saturday from 8 to 3. The guy who runs the place knows me by name. They take CRTs and fluorescent tubes, but they don’t take batteries.
Behind the lens
Last week, my dad discovered that his former place of business has a battery recycling program. I handed him my collection of dead batteries, and I dug out Sarah’s camera bag to see what she had squirreled away. I found another handful of dead batteries, along with (surprise!) her cameras, containing even more dead batteries.
One camera also contained some exposed film.
These were the pictures from our last trip together. We went to Puerto Rico with her parents in January of 2006.
I took the camera to CVS, bought some new batteries, and put them in the camera. I rewound the film and dropped it off to be developed.
There were lots of great pictures of me and Nate.
Not one picture of Sarah.
Damn. But then, I guess she was soaking you guys in, you know? The two of you were in her frame, the focus of her life.
Also, I say “more _____ than the average bear” all the time. I don’t know anyone else who actually says that, until now. 🙂
That’s exactly it. We were what was most important to her.
We used to argue about it all the time. I wanted her to put the camera away and just be in the moment with me. Now that it’s too late, I can see what she meant.
I went through all your online albums, because I wanted to create this really cool picture of you, Sarah and Nate. But there were not enough pictures of Sarah. I said to myself, “she’s behind the camera all the time, just like me.”
If I didn’t do self-portraits to remind myself I’m still here, there wouldn’t be any pictures of me. Probably. Who would take them? Gabriel only wants to take pictures of the cat’s butt.