Rogue Women

"I have a t.v. to recycle," I tell the guy in the pink shirt at the Best Buy customer service counter.

"Great," he says, peering over the counter.

"It's in the car. It's...big." I explain. Major understatement.

"I'll call Rodrigo." He punches a couple of numbers into the phone.

"You might need two people." I say. He gives me that look. The one that says, Lady, we do this all the time. Rodrigo can totally handle it.

"You really need two people. It's big."

"How big?" He humors me.

I spread my arms out as far as they will go. He looks unimpressed. Then I indicate the depth of the tv. Still nothing.

Rodrigo shows up. I explain. The guy in the pink shirt is skeptical, but pleasant. They call another Best Buy Guy and follow me out to the van. I open the slider.

It's not Rodrigo's fault. I'm sure he is a perfectly manly guy. But he didn't stand a chance on his own. My dad passed this behemoth on to us when they got their new one. Quite a character - the t.v. not my dad. Well okay, my dad is a character, too, but that isn't really pertinent to the t.v. story. It was a great t.v. until it caught fire one day. Then it was relegated to the garage where old appliances, scrap wood, and excess cardboard go to die.

And there the mammoth languished for months until a couple of days ago when Jan asked if I'd be up for a Rogue Women Day. This is a concept she came up with wherein women take it upon themselves to do those ornery projects that we generally depend on our men to do. (Projects our men generally put off until they are forgotten - and who can blame them, really?).

"Best buy will recycle your t.v. for ten dollars." She explained. Sign me up.

So here we are, and Rodrigo and Best Buy Guy are struggling to ease the electronic boulder onto a low shopping cart. Clunk. The right, front wheel breaks.

Suddenly, and inexplicably, I am proud of my old, broken television. I am proud that it is too big for Rodrigo to handle on his own, and proud that it broke the shopping cart. I try not to gloat. Then the t.v. falls off the cart in the doorway.

"You can go to the service desk," Rodrigo pants.

We walk away, leaving the t.v. there in the doorway like one of those granite blocks state parks put in front of roads they don't want you to drive on. Customers pick their way around it, baffled.

I pay for the t.v., and Rodrigo hands me a $10 gift card. Good deal.

When we get back home, Jan and I peer into the garage to look at the big empty spot where the t.v. used to sit. We note the rest of the junk that still needs to be cleaned out.

"Checking out the neighbor's garage?" Helen, the little old lady who lives next to us, chuckles.

"Cleaning it out," I reply. See? We DO TOO do work around here...

"Yeah, I saw your husband moving it out of the garage this morning." (Yeah, that's right, my husband is stronger than Rodrigo.) "It looked like it was almost too much for him."

"It was almost too much for the two of us," I motion to Jan and myself. "We had to drag it from the front of the garage on the ground, pivoting it from side to side. We barely got it in the van."

"I know, I saw you."

That's Helen. Always watching. She's a bit of a Rogue woman herself.