My garage floods, so everything in it has to be kept up off the floor to avoid water damage. This week Sydney got some absolutely absurd amounts of rainfall and even the things off the floor were not safe. It took me some days to get brave enough to open the door to check on the damage. But yesterday, I got around to it and amassed a pile of stuff that needs to be thrown out.

A lot of the things are electrical and should not be put out in the standard garbage collection.

So, to cut a long story short, I filled the station wagon with old electrical items and various other things, rusted aerosol cans, fire extinguishers and a lone gas bottle – the barbeque went in the trash long ago – and a collection of soft plastics that also can’t go in the normal recycling bin.

Today, I headed off to my local E-waste depot. I drove in, opened the door and the guy came to help me unload. I made some small talk about how I had a few things to get done today.

What I did not know was that as I drove one of the fire extinguishers rolled and the pin fell out of it. He reached in to pick it up by the handles and compressed the firing mechanism.

A cloud of white dust floofed voluminously out the open door of my car.

We stood there. We looked at each other.

He gave me a nervous smile. “Well,” he said, “There’s another job for you.”

I laughed; you’ve gotta laugh. I mean, it was an accident. I will not freak out over it. And I’m lucky it didn’t go off while I was driving.

But the entire car interior is coated in the stuff. And me, once I got back in the car to drive home.

Sighs.