Replacing Stuff

Last week, on my way to work, the insulated bag that I use to transport my lunch got soaked when one of my Gatorade containers leaked inside it. I kept trying to soak up the mess with paper towels, but somehow the liquid got between the lining and the exterior, so it would leak stickiness over every surface I laid it down on. After wiping it out about three times, only to have it drip some more, I finally said "Fuck it!" and threw the whole thing out. The weekend was upon me, and I decided to just buy a new one.

It's just as well. The bag used to belong to Snarkwife, but I had appropriated it for my own use several years ago. She let me keep it when she moved out. I went to the store and bought a really nice new one. I also bought a new plastic sandwich container to put in the new one, since the old sandwich container didn't fit right. I love my new insulated lunch bag and my new sandwich container. It even has a zippered pouch to hold the book that I read during lunch.

That's one less thing in the apartment to remind me of Snarkwife. Slowly, by piecemeal, the apartment is being transformed from our home to my home:

• I bought a colorful new mat for the cats' bathroom.
  
• The really old boom box that lived in the bathroom pissed me off because it kept skipping when it would play CDs, so I took it to my sister's garage and beat the shit out of it with a baseball bat. (An homage to Office Space.) I thought this act of violence would make me feel better, but I was mostly embarrassed about it. Then I bought a new CD player and put it in a different corner of the bathroom.
  
• The shower curtain was getting gross, so I switched it with the one in the cat bathroom.
  
• This weekend I took a bag of stuff to Goodwill, including Mr. Cluck, a bathroom toy that we used to joke was a "scarekitty" to keep the cats out of the bathtub. (It didn't work.)
  
• I bought a TiVo.
• I got a new TV for the bedroom to replace the one Snarkwife took when she left.
  
• I've bought new shirts, tennis shoes, a bathing suit, a cat food dish, a bottle of Kahlua.
  

All of these things sit around my apartment and make up the backdrop of my home. These changes are not so much marked by a conscious effort to renew my life, but by the natural passage of time. The more time goes by, the more things like lunch containers and CD players break down and have to be replaced.

There are still holes on the walls where she took posters and picture frames. I've been meaning to replace them, but I haven't found anything I like yet. There's no hurry. Like all the other stuff I've replaced, the opportunity will present itself to put something new on the walls.