Compost

About 5 years ago, my mom got really into composting. Like really into composting.

In March of 2011, my parents had just bought a condo in Mammoth Lakes. The whole family headed up there for a weekend to check out the place, and I came along to help pick out furniture, give my parents suggestions about what renovations needed to be done, and of course, to get a little skiing in. That year was an epic season, and this is what the walkways in the condo complex looked like:

So much snow!!!

My mom and I were in the kitchen when I noticed her putting uneaten egg yolks from hardboiled eggs into a Ziploc bag containing some other trash- vegetable peelings and coffee grounds that we had thrown away earlier. She then placed the bag into the refrigerator.

"What are you doing...???" I demanded of my mother.

"Oh, I am saving for the compost."

"You are not saving trash and bringing it back home."

"Why not?"

"Mom, that's just gross. Where are you going to put it? Is there not enough trash at home that you have to bring trash home from vacation?!?!"

"Oh the car is so large. We have extra room in the coolers because we eat the food."

"Mom, have you been digging in the trash to get this stuff???" I knew she had been, I had thrown those vegetable peeling in last night, and the coffee grounds that morning.

"Oh the coffee grounds are so good for compost."

"Mom, you can't do this. There is trash at home. You don't need to bring it back all the way from Mammoth!" I grabbed the bag from her and threw it in the trash.

She then ran off to the bathroom and when she didn't reappear after a few minutes, I began feeling guilty. I went to find her, and found her crying in front of the sink. I awkwardly put a hand on her shoulder.

"Since I hurt my knee skiing, I haven't been able to exercise," she sobbed, "I have been gardening and it has become very important to me."

In my mind, I sighed deeply. I was going to have to lose this one. I let her take home her bag of trash. And since then, I've let her take home many bags of trash. Whenever she comes to visit, she digs around for compost in my kitchen wastebasket and puts it in a Ziploc bag that she stores in my freezer until they go home. She especially likes to save egg shells and egg yolks- she tells me that they grind these up and feed it to the chickens. Lots of protein and calcium to make strong egg shells! I try to ignore the obvious weirdness of feeding hens parts of the eggs that they had just laid.

The last time my parents came into town, I tried to get my dad to take a photo of my mom's compost bag since they were staying in a nearby hotel. When I mentioned it, he started huffing about how she made him carry back trash from Europe when they visited Barcelona. "I refused! I throw the bag out at customs!"