Compost Studios

To the Tupperware container with tomato stains: I can’t bear to look at you anymore. You’re nasty and I want you out of my kitchen. Maybe I’m shallow, but looks matter. Don’t tell me I’ll recognize how much I need you when you’re gone. I don’t want to hear it. You’re an overpriced piece of suburban luxury plastic, but tonight you'll be hanging out with the recyclables. Bye-bye-bye!

To the ten single socks that have been in the bottom of the laundry basket for at least a month: What’s up? Where the hell are your mates? Were they sucked into another dimension? Victims of amnesia? Living a secret life in a drawer on the wrong side of the dresser? Sent packing because of holes in the fabric of their lives? Guess what? I no longer care! I am so tired of trying to find your partners and encouraging you to stick with your mates that I’m sending you on a singles cruise. Wait here in the nice brown bag. Pick up is at the curb. Have a nice trip.

To the eight different shades of brown eyeshadow in my cosmetics drawer: You look like lovely neutral shades of café au lait, milk chocolate, bronze, cinnamon, maple, and honey—but I've seen your true colors. You’re all secretly shades of orange and coral! Really! And you know what? You’re going on vacation with the socks. Y'all belong somewhere tropical.

To the five different shades of berry lipstick: I don’t know what brought us together, but things are just not working out. You can go ahead and tell your friends that I left you for a tube of cheap Chapstick but really, Hon, I’m serious about the irreconcilable differences. You suck the life out of my face and make me look like a vampire. We’re just wrong for each other.

To the Mary Kay shower gel, the Bath and Body Works lotion, the Infusium shampoo and conditioner, and the Avon hair mask: We’ve been sharing a bathroom forever, but somehow we never seem to really click. I keep thinking things will get better between us, that we’ll spend quality time together, but the truth is I ignore you day in and day out. Don’t be upset. It’s not you—it’s me. It's time we quit analyzing our relationship and move on.

January 11, 2007