Today’s a beautiful day here in Melbourne. Retail and hospitality businesses are back open. People can gather in groups of 10 outside from any number of households. 2 people from one household can go hang out at another person’s place. It’s magnificent. After a truly agonising, lengthy lockdown, Melbourne is finally opening back up. And while the shops and reconnecting with people are fantastic options, the thing I’m most excited for – absolutely frothing for, tbh – is the day the tips open back up so I can get rid of all this motherfucking cardboard I’ve acquired.
People outside of Melbourne aren’t going to fully understand me when I say this, but I am drowning in cardboard. I am up to my neck in the shit. I have flattened, empty boxes flowing out of my ears. And today marks the official countdown to the tips re-opening, and the day that I can jettison all these cursed cartons out of my house forever.
Make no mistake about it: Every Melburnian currently has a cardboard stockpile somewhere in their house.
We have been in lockdown since March, effectively. Holed up in our houses with nothing to do but idly browse online shopping outlets. The mail has been the only way to obtain anything other than groceries and booze for literal months.
And so the boxes have been piling up.
The mailing satchels and bags have been easy enough to deal with, but the boxes are another thing entirely.
Box after box after box arriving and piling up, far exceeding the standard recycling bin’s capacity to deal with it.
It’s easy for those of you who didn’t live through this to sit there and scoff, but the bone-chilling reality that all Melburnians have endured is that enduring extended lockdown has been piss boring and that ordering shit online provided seconds of valuable distraction.
And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that I – me personally – managed to move house during stage four lockdown as well.
Moving boxes, piled halfway to my new garage’s ceiling! Flattened containers that ferried precious Who Gives A Crap cargo to my house balancing precariously on top like the apex of a house of cards! Shit bloody everywhere!
All this says absolutely nothing of the logistical issues that moving house while being confined to a 5km travel limit poses.
Think about it: Facebook Marketplace? Gumtree? These have been all-but useless to Melburnians since the dead of winter.
Suddenly I’ve got a lawn that requires maintaining! But I couldn’t go any further than 5km to get a lawnmower second hand. The solution there? Bunnings Drive & Collect, and a heaving big box shoved into the back of the car.
We needed a new entertainment unit because the perils of renting means moving makes most of your old furniture immediately fucking useless! We couldn’t go get one off some berk out in Cranbourne, so you know what? Fuck it! Flat packs! Delivered straight to the door!
I broke our TV during the move! One big fuck-off box, thanks!
Never in my life have I had this much cardboard to deal with. And so with Melbourne finally re-opening, I am rejoicing. Not just because I can finally re-connect with my near and dear, but because soon will come the day when the doors of the tip fling back open and I can heave seven months of accumulated hell out of my house in a responsible and joyous way.
Can’t wait. I simply cannot.
