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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
Trash talking
the rubbish can
is no way to goWhen was the last time you took some time out of your busy schedule to scold your garbage can?
If you're like me, it's been a long, long time -- and if you're nothing like me, it's been a long, long, long, long time.
Like most Digital Slobs, I've been burned way too many times in dead-end relationships with waste receptacles. All they ever do is take, take, take, and none of them ever meet you halfway. Therefore, I decided to give up on tidiness altogether -- why stay a victim?
Until recently, I hadn't maintained a healthy relationship with a trash can in years. Rather, I stuffed my rubbish into my "emotional baggage." That's what my therapist said, anyway. But, to my chagrin, landlords often lack the same affection for the soothing metaphors expressed by psychiatric professionals, preferring their colorful terms take on a more legalistic hue, such as "numerous complaints," "health code violations," and "evict."
Sensing all this tension (not to mention numerous wadded-up cell phone bills and empty Taco Bell cups) in my condo, I was more than eager to test drive the Touchless Trash Can (www.itouchless.com).
Thanks to a battery-operated motion sensor, this device knows when you're nearby with dirt/ swill/incriminating evidence, and automatically opens and closes its lid like a perfect little maid/pig/co-conspirator. This keeps your hands far from the petri-dish-like brim of your refuse container, so you don't have to run to the bathroom to wash your index finger every time you want to pick you nose (we've all been there, right?).
As its User's Manual (translated from Chinese to Hindi to Gaelic to the Whistle Language of the Canary Islands back to Chinese to Binary Code to Naru to English) so eloquently states, "When you are opening the lid of the trash can sold in the market nowadays, you have to touch it with your hand or your foot. It is not convenient or hygienic."
If you want to see a Slob tear up, just read him that sentence, and he will know that somehow, somewhere, someone understands. Someone knows his plight. Someone cares. I think I might need a minute here. ...
The touchless trash can comes in two sizes, Personal Size and Dead Raccoon Found in the Basement Size, and they are priced at about $30 and $50.
Though its appeal to obsessive compulsives should be obvious, the touchless trash can is also handy for Slobs who, whether they get impromptu visits from their moms, girlfriends or case workers, often need to throw things away two fistfuls at a time.
But this device is more than just an able comrade in the struggle against debris and social alienation -- it's a member of the family. Put a "smart chip" in a lid and it becomes a mouth, and just about anything with a mouth (except river basins and Carson Daly) is perceived to have a personality.
But whether you meander nearby with intent to dispose or not, its yap juts open like the gaping beak on a newborn sparrow. At first, this will freak you out, no matter how many kids do the exact same thing in your house on an hourly basis.
And a few times it didn't want to work, and I found myself with two armfuls of muck yelling at it like it was a disobedient dog (berate a garbage can if you want to become feckless personified).
Still, for this fast-food addicted Slob, it's nice to have something else in the house that also automatically eats garbage.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's production editor. Reach him at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com
