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It was a pretty simple objective, really, all I wanted was a new garbage pail for my bathroom. I figured a new one might cost, oh five maybe six bucks tops and that it just wasn't worth the money to try and scrub a decades worth of grunk off the inside. So I hucked the little white, plastic cylinder and went in search of a new one.

My first stop was a place, appropriately labeled, "Bed, Bath and Beyond". Honestly I wasn't too much interested in the 'bed' or 'beyond' part but the 'bath' label seemed to me just the ticket (although I was curious about the 'beyond' part).

Coming in the door, I wandered through a sea of stainless steel, brightly colored rubber, and natural wood kitchen utensils. Ok I'll admit - I never really thought about making a muffin pan out of rubber, yes it's a neat idea to be able to flex the tray and have the muffins pop out. But cooking something on greasy rubber? I wasn't so sure about that. I gave the tray a few experimental pokes. It had the feel of a deflated balloon. Weird. I moved on.

Somehow I meandered into the "Land of many baroque curtains". Did you have any idea that buying just one, ONE, set of curtains could cost as much as a really expensive meal complete with drinks? I didn't. I'm not sure who wants gold lame and velvet curtains with olive green trim with crystal beads dripping from it's edges. I know that in my house either the cats would shred the $45 ~per panel velour in an eye blink or my half-hearted vacuuming technique would ensure that these tassels would get sucked into the beater causing a disruption of my cleaning and a similar shredding to whatever the cats had left.

It took me quite a while to find the 'bath' section. I wove my way through pillows of all shapes, sizes and geometric possibilities (icosahedrons?). Past an entire section of hampers... who knew they were so important? And finally stumbled into the bathroom area, mostly by following the scent of new plastic and nylon shower curtains. I figured I was close to my grail, the cheapo garbage pail - preferably in white.

When I rounded the corner of the shelf I was dumfounded. There were pails all right, but what pails they were! There were pails cut from single pieces of Italian marble (weighing, by my estimate, between 25 and 30 lbs apiece). These puppies were built to LAST. I'm talking into millennia to come. If you wanted a pail that was destined to be unearthed at a later date by some archeologist, this one was for you. It cost $55. Not what I was looking for exactly, I mean I kinda wanted something I could pick up and shake upside down when I emptied it. I didn't want to have to use a floor jack in the process. Next.

Esoteric beauties of patterned mother of pearl glinted at me. Ceramic works of modern art, looking like refugees from the vase section filled the shelves. Again in a variety of swirls, swooshes, and geometric shapes (dodecahedron?). Not for me - I want something that actually empties when I shake it upside down, not gets shit wedged in some curl or corner.

Monsters of chrome and plastic. Laminations of exotic woods and pressed flowers lacquered into things so delicate and bizarre that dropping a used q-tip into it would seem like an arrestable offense. Byzantine creations of glass beads... and nothing, not one thing for less than a minimum of $25. Wtf, all I wanted was a plastic garbage pail how fucking hard was this?

I was about to give up in disgust and ponder hitting Staples or something and get a regular (oversized) pail when I spied, in a corner, a stack of $5 plastic pails. More funnel shaped than cylindrical, but hell at this point I couldn't care less. I snatched a white one - one of the few white ones (the rest being pastel shades that reminded me of Barbie). I get to the checkout and.... there's no price. I wanted to get out, out of the fucking place by then so I ran back to the bath area and grabbed a pink one and almost flung it at the cashier. "Do you still want the white one? I'm ringing in the pink one, they won't let you return it if it's white." I reassured her that yes I wanted the white, please, please, returning it was not in the realm of possibility.

I finished paying and bolted out. Happy to get the hell out of the store. I finally had a good idea of what they meant by the 'beyond' part, meaning much of their wares had to be purchased by people who were 'beyond reason'.

If I encounter someone in desperate need of a new bathroom garbage pail, I'll give them the best advice of their life - 'it's actually worth the 5 bucks to clean the one you've got than waste an hour of your life trying to find a new one... trust me'.