One of the secondary jobs that we do as we're monitoring nest boxes in the park is picking up trash out of the wetland. A lot of stuff washes downstream from nearby subdivisions, and (alas) some people chuck junk directly into the pond. We're wearing waders, so we collect stuff others can't, but there's often an old beer can that's just out of reach. So I went looking for one of those gadgets, you know, a pole with jaws on the end, for picking up stuff.

I just don't get the right set of mail order catalogs any more. It's been a while since I got a mailing from Miles Kimball or Lilian Vernon or Junky Housewares That Look Cool But You'll Never Use. I tried the big box hardware stores around town—no luck. So I went online, starting with the search term "grabber," and after half an hour of wandering the electronic aisles I found an complete product line from Unger, a janitorial supply company, under the trademark Nifty Nabber. I found an Amazon.com Marketplace merchant with the to-the-point but unlovely name of ToiletPaperWorld and placed an order.

It turns out that TPW is in the metro area, in Columbia, Md., so two days later my 51-inch picker-upper was on my doorstep. (My only complaint with the virtual storefronts at A.c is that you can't select a merchant who's nearby.) And here's the best part: it arrived exactly as you see it in the thumbnail, with only a shipping label wrapped around the shaft. No cardboard box to recycle, no plastic filler in the box to throw away, just trash-picking utility. Hats off to UPS and ToiletPaperWorld for minimizing the waste stream.

posted: 1:19:11 PM  

Don't be the bunny! On second thought, these bunny slippers might be more than you can handle.

(Thanks to Margaret Mason.)

posted: 12:38:54 PM