I’ve been checking my email a few times a day ever since I first started using it, and that’s been a long time. After retiring and moving into consulting, I developed a set routine—morning, noon, and night—especially when recruiting business partners, students, and school staff for the summer program. I didn’t want to miss anything, so I kept a constant watch, leaving nothing to chance. That habit stuck with me for thirteen years and has carried on for the six years since. I’ve never used recreational drugs, but I imagine the way addicts crave their next hit is similar to how I feel about email, even though most of it is just junk.
Since May, I’ve been checking almost hourly, after discovering a roof leak in my Michigan condo. I want to sell the condo but won’t list it until repairs are finished. The association is responsible, but they’ve been waiting on insurance adjusters to determine if storm damage caused the leak. If so, the insurance will cover the repairs.
They waited almost six weeks to begin the process. That just added to my frustration. I waited for them to reply to my initial maintenance request before I began emailing them directly. When I didn’t receive a timely return, my frustration grew. I started calling and leaving voicemails. That got things moving.
I received a return voicemail and was told they emailed me at least a half dozen times. I never read them, so I checked the trash section of my Yahoo account. That’s where they were. They never went to my inbox, so I never read them. I apologized for my impatience, move the selected trash to my inbox and contacted my online connection to Geek Squad to help fix the problem. Kabir couldn’t figure it out so he told me I should make an appointment in the local store. I haven’t yet.
What I do do is check my email trash before checking my inbox. I’m doing that at least three times a day. Some of my friend’s emails are going to my trash rather than where they’re supposed to go. It’s crazy and I don’t see a pattern to the craziness. My now normal routine is the check my trash, transfer good emails to my inbox, and then empty the trash. I do that at least three times a day. That’s the only way I can be sure I don’t miss anything.
The last time I spent this much time checking the trash was when I was in seventh grade. That’s the year we had our house fire and lived at my Grandpa Barner’s house while the repairs were being made. I had one responsibility while we lived there. Burn the trash. He had a burn barrel in the alley behind his house. He ran his own plumbing and heating business and had a lot of cardboard. I didn’t burn every night but at least every other.
I liked doing it. I did a lot of thinking while I watched the fire burn. There was no one to talk to, so I just let my thoughts run through my head. I don’t remember everything, but I expect I focused on school, a couple of girls I liked at the time, and when the house would be ready for us to move back home. I loved my grandfather but living in Detroit was different than Royal Oak. I would have rather been there.
Our house fire was around 1960. I don’t know how many Detroiters had burn barrels, but I do know that in the 1970s, Detroit officials, led by Mayor Coleman Young, confronted rising garbage volumes, and the strain it put on the city’s budget, by encouraging homeowners to burn their trash. This was the first documented period when trash burning became part of Detroit’s waste‑management approach.
It turns out that my Grandpa Barner and a couple of his neighbors were trash burning pioneers. Makes me feel kinda proud to be such a trail blazer.