Bottle Purgatory

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On paper it looked really smart. Call the store, confirm the time for bottles and cans returns. Get there early the following morning. Recycle.

Like many, we had about four months of plastic bottles to return and were trying to prevent completely running out of garbage bags or space in our basement. Our time had come.

We arrive as advised and note a sign that says recycling is only available starting an hour from now. Speaking to the store manager resulted his offer to allow us to return the bottles now. Really smart and customer-driven. But it was all downhill from there.

Maybe I should preface the rest of this story with the understanding that the hardest part of any mundane task – any task that can't be done virtually and is under the Covid-19 regulations — is hardly mundane anymore.

We make it through despite only three of the six machines are operational to maintain space between patrons thus eliminating our "two-people can go twice as fast" plans. We step back for the pushy customer behind us on line who says he knows more about clearing machines as he ignores his six feet of social distancing to get the device crushing again for all of another two minutes. We watch time slipping away, lots and lots of time that could have been better spent sleeping. Or daydreaming. Or sitting in some parking lot hoisting breakfast sandwiches with our friends.

Instead we are pushing bottles into a contraption, taking our big windfall of $9.50 receipts to customer service and being reprimanded by another employee regarding our failure to follow the rules regarding hours of operation. (No worries — might as well use some choice adjectives and provide the corporate office with a long email about that.)

If we consider the everyday changes to get to where we are in Summer 2020 in our fight against Covid-19, it just goes to show that even if we detest change we still have to have the exhaustive capacity to embrace it.

Now if I could only find a teller-based bank within a five-mile radius that is open long enough so I could stop regretting my passbook-based savings account and arrange for an immediate banking card.

A contributing writer to the Herald since 2012, Lauren Lev is an East Meadow resident and a direct marketing/advertising executive who teaches marketing fundamentals as well as advertising and marketing communications courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology and SUNY Old Westbury.