$110?!?!?!?!

When we bought the house in Asheville, we knew that, sooner or later, we would move there. Thus, Kathy did not furnish the house with the same cheap stuff we used to furnish the other rental properties. I agreed with this philosophy, but in retrospect I find one exception: the kitchen trash can.

Back in 2006 I bought a house in Madison, Georgia. I had spent five years living in apartments, so I needed lots and lots of items for the house, such as a lawn mower, trash cans, beds, sofas, etc. I bought a Rubbermaid kitchen trash can for the kitchen. It was a standard 13-gallon container. I still have it: it resides in my basement office, semi-retired, as it no longer receives the workout it did when it was in the kitchen. I have no idea how much I paid for it, but I am willing to bet that the cost was less than $20. And here it is, still functional after 20 years. In fact, it could pass for new.

Somewhere in the past Kathy became familiar with the Simplehuman brand of trash cans. She had a bathroom Simplehuman, very small, operated with a foot pedal, and she really liked it. They do look nice and modern, with their sleek, stainless-steel construction. At any rate, she decided that nothing less than a Simplehuman trash can would do for the Asheville kitchen. Ever mindful of the slogan (probably created by a never-married fellow, or a vengeful wife) “Happy wife, happy life,” I took myself off to Lowes in order to make Kathy happy.

I found her trash can, but it did not make me happy. Not at all! The sticker price for that trash can was $110. One hundred ten dollars for a kitchen trash can! True, it did have a foot pedal that opened the top of the container, whereas my Rubbermaid did not. Still, it seemed to me that $110 was an exorbitant price to pay for a can that will end up holding stinking kitchen garbage.

It got worse. This trash can uses 11-gallon trash bags, not the standard 13-gallon bags that you can find everywhere, occasionally on sale. Take a guess as to the only manufacturer I found who made 11-gallon trash bags. If you guessed Simplehuman, you are correct.

Nonetheless, I bought the damned thing. I now special-order Simplehuman trash bags from Amazon. And as you might have guessed by virtue of the fact that I am writing about it, at the four-year mark it began to malfunction.

Our dog Lucy was having a sleepover with her cousin, Coco. Kathy and I went out to dinner, and when we returned, we found the kitchen trash can lid open, and garbage strewn all over the floor. Coco is a clever pup who figured out how to open the lid by stepping on the foot pedal. But the lid had stopped returning to its closed position, giving Coco time to retrieve her treasure, as I am told that is what one man’s trash is. Our expensive trash can no longer worked properly.

(All the while I am remembering my 20-year-old Rubbermaid, which still works.)

I took the trash can apart and found the guilty party: a piston that was supposed to slowly close the lid was now frozen in the “up” position. On the Simplehuman website I looked for the link to order replacement parts. I searched in vain. Simplehuman apparently does not want you to repair their products. Next stop: Amazon. I found many replacement pistons, but none that fit the Simplehuman exactly. I took my best guess at a piston that might work. They sent me a packet of five pistons. None worked.

I removed the old piston completely, and now the lid slams shut, instead of gently lowering itself. That will probably be a good thing for when Coco does another sleepover.

I am quite sure that Kathy would like a new Simplehuman for the kitchen, but she will have to make do with the current one for the next, say, 16 years. Simplehuman trash cans look great, but they are not simple enough, and this human is frustrated with them.