I drove the Mac over to the Mail and More Store this morning.  Carried it in, with the mouse and keyboard dangling around my ankles, and gently dropped it on the counter.  The woman had been watching me make my way across the parking lot and saw me coming toward the door.  I smelled the cigarette before I saw it in the ashtray behind the counter.   She was exhaling as I walked in the door.

“Can you ship it to New York?”

“How soon do you want it there?”

“Next week sometime.  I guess there’s not a hurry.”

She layered the box with peanuts.  “Are those biodegradable, by any chance?”

“No,” she seemed sort of proud of this. “Those don’t work.”

What does she mean ‘those don’t work?’   “Recycling in New York is onerous. I can’t legally put those in the trash, and the recycling truck won’t pick them up on Thursday mornings.”

“That’s why we encourage you to bring them to another Mail and More Store,” she said off hand, like of course, why didn’t I think of that. “The box is recycled, and you get a discount for that.”

Woo hoo.  My livelihood is in a recycled box.

She eased the computer on the layer of pellets, added more on top, put in a sheet of styrofoam before artistically laying the keyboard and speakers on top, then buried them in a shower of white foam.

I wonder if instead of burying my coffin under six feet of mud a few boxes of peanuts would suffice.  I mean the stuff will never deteriorate. In a couple hundred years they could just blow the stuff aside and I’d be ready for a lab experiment on humans in the late evolutionary period.

After a quick puff on her cigarette she reached for the tape gun and sealed that box air tight.  Stickered it with the Second Floor Penthouse address, and carried it away.

So long computer.  With my movie trailers, spreadsheets, documents, music videos, and glow in the dark keyboard.

I’ll see you in New York.

I hope.