EVERYONE has been made to feel like the outcast at one time or another.  Maybe you wore the wrong thing, like DayGlo yellow Crocs and a matching legionnaire’s hat to a garden party in Montauk; the costume de rigueur was Sperry Top-Siders, ice cream colored knits and a smug look of privileged serenity.  Maybe you said the wrong thing, like the time you questioned the ubiquity of yoga pants, iced mochas and Rachel Ray at function full of soccer moms. Sure those were awkward moments. But that ridicule and embarrassment was nothing compared to the shame and humiliation I felt when attempting to make a charitable donation of a 37 inch cathode ray tube television.

That’s what I tried to do last week: make a generous donation of an enviable piece of consumer electronics to the charity of my choice.

To be sure, I would’ve loved to give my 325 pound prize to an avant garde art student who’d use it to loop flickering images in an edgy installation piece. Perhaps an indie director would desire to toss it out a third story window, the catalyst for her stirring film’s dramatic climax. But as a near shut-in and self-styled country bumpkin I do not personally know any of these talented people. I presume they, like the Smithsonian, would jump at the chance to own such a magnificent piece of antiquity. And it still works, mind you. I lovingly gazed into its phosphorus glow each and every night, right up until the very hour I decided to banish it forever. It had become obsolete and its obsolescence was beginning to chafe. It mocked my poor eyesight with its blurred telecasts and pervasive moire patterns. But you’ll also please realize this TV set was top of the line when Magnavox rolled it out back in 1999. It offered built-in DVD and VCR components, over 100 channel capability, wireless remote, a low-def 37” screen, numerous input and output ports… all within an attractive grey box the  size of a Suzuki Samurai. Only without the wheels.

So it needed to go and who better to have it than the first charitable organization that I could find? The drop-off spot that I intended to magnanimously bestow my soon-to-be former television was a Goodwill donation trailer. The tractor-less trailer was tucked into the very back of a King County Park and Ride. This was an auspicious locale. What better place to depart with an outdated piece of consumer electronics than the nether reaches of an underutilized parking lot? I pulled up smiling, hopeful and feeling a tad self-congratulatory for doing my part to help the needy or whatever. What is it Goodwill does… are they the ones with the annoying bell?

I’d feared it was closed and was truly grateful when I saw that the trailer was open with bins and boxes neatly stacked outside. To the left stood a Goodwill sentry house that looked even less accommodating than a GTE phone booth. I could see it’s occupant inside and he could see me —grinning like an idiot. But he did not stir. Fine. I’ll hoist the humongous thing all myself, happy to be rid of it. I opened my door and soon as I did, a personage of unknown origin materialized from a parked car in the lot. She looked at me like I was about to ask her for money, a special look of pity and disdain anyone with an unwanted TV over 24 inches is already familiar with. Her eyes were hard and her lips pressed into an expression that betrayed a possible addiction to Lemonheads candy.

“What size is that television,” she asked needlessly.

“Gigantic,” I said with foolish aplomb.

“We don’t take those here. You’ll have to donate it at a store. There’s one in South Bumfuck or you could try that one over in East Shittsville.”

The supervisor had spoken. Why one guy in a booth the size and shape of Snoopy’s house needs a mouthpiece to impart the rules is but another issue. I was stirred by her revelation but not shaken. After grunting a hell no! for my goodbye I sped away, punching it toward the next donation depot I could get to in a hurry. The hour was getting late and my fear was the charity of my second-choice would be closing its donation doors before I could arrive. With rain closing in my magnanimous donation would get wet. Not good for a working TV, especially one of this caliber. I drove to the next town, fully expecting to be greeted with thanks and adulations when I arrived at St. Vincent DePaul.

In a telling twist, the most prominent sign on their building said NO DUMPING. Pity, how uncouth clods would unload a bunch of useless crap on poor St. Vinnie. Below that sign was a message directing me to alert the staff inside that I was waiting outside with my selfless gift. Before I could meander inside and tell everyone the good news another hipper, younger version of me pulled up in back, also with a TV to donate. We walked in and announced our gifts to a woman in a smock. She stood there in bad lighting behind a scratched glass case full of costume baubles and broken wristwatches, clearly unimpressed by our promise of frankincense and myrrh. I asked if someone might go and meet us in back to accept our bounty of electronics.

“Just drive all the way around the building. They’re out there.”

When I arrived all the way around back at the slovenly donation dock I found two full-timers shooting the shit in their rain pants. They were a couple of cut-ups like Amos and Hardy or Laurel and Andy but all the funny stopped when they saw my TV. Laurel grew deathly serious and echoed the message I had heard before: we won’t take TV sets that big. Meanwhile, my hipper, younger doppelganger was whisked inside with a 24” TV that he could easily carry. My magnificent charity was now a cumbersome albatross. All those around me could sense my shame and dismay. Laurel quickly offered the ditch out back as a plausible alternative. No! This TV works and furthermore, I will not stoop to littering.

Dejected, I drove toward home with little regard for the TV’s well-being. I didn’t want to break it in transit to the promised land so I’d pussy-foot the brakes and baby it around turns and generally drive like I was transporting a truckload of nitroglycerin not a pariah CRT. But now the deal was off. I was a two-time loser thanks to the inexplicably high standards of organizations that accept neckties that are unfit for even Craig Sager. For twenty miles, maybe more, I’d lugged around an enormous doorstop and now I was in a quandary. I remembered hearing that TVs of this size were very entertaining when filled with gasoline and then powered on. Fearing fallout and shrapnel, I opted not to go the Ted Nugent route. Instead, I went towards my office complex where I knew there lay an enormous dumpster with a capacity for 200 TV sets like mine. I backed up to the edge of the massive green receptacle and mentally prepared myself for the challenge of hoisting my hundred weight demon over the eight foot dumpster wall. In the interim, I read the warnings and advisements posted by the good people at Waste Management. It was predictable stuff. No medical waste, no flammable liquids, no radioactive materials, no electronics including NO TVs [this means you Scott Grossman].

It was eerie how Waste Management was so specific. But they also provided me with a specific alternative: recycling. There were several state sponsored recycling programs that would accept anything and everything consumer electronics. Just don’t try to use there web site to find them. Or call them on the phone. There’s not a lot of funding for these endeavors so fancy things like hours of operation, locations or general information regarding the viability of a drop-off sometimes gets overlooked

Undaunted and empowered by my “smart phone” —yet another gadget I’m sure I’ll be tossing in ten minutes when a way better one comes along— I found a place called PC Recyclers which in theory was in my town. But only if you live in the sort of up-is-down Lewis Carrol-esque place like I do where the lines have been gerrymandered so obtusely that it’s possible to pass through three jurisdictions just by crossing the street. I wheeled around hairpin turns and down rabbit holes, sojourned to and fro in a GPS guided fantasy that had me over the hills and through the woods and just this side of grandmother’s house.  Then I saw it, a giant metal building with the PC Recyclers beacon emblazoned across the top. My Mecca.

 

I pulled up in front and ran into the office to pump the hand of this saint who would soon unburden me. The door swung open and the inside was an episode of hoarders where the inflicted had finally succumb, crushed by a crumbling wave of adding machines, IBMs and external modems. I backed out in a state of shock and asked the skinny dude on his cell phone in the parking lot if he knew what had happened. Dude just said to drive around and meet him in the back. With cautious optimism I went around back, parking far and away from the bobtail truck with rubbish spilling out. I was anticipating a negotiation, maybe I’d have to pay a bribe to get rid of this thing. I was wondering how much. I handed him my remote and felt the slightest tinge like saying goodbye to an old friend who’d dedicated their last hours to wronging and shaming you in ways you didn’t know existed. Saddened, I informed him it works. He was surprised and repeated my statement as a question, it works?  But before I could even issue a warning about the heft of my set, the guy had snatched it in his arms and tip-toed the one ton TV past the debris spilling onto the concrete apron.

 

“I am impressed!” I said feeling all the more humiliated by the way he had so easily removed it.