Nah’msayin: These Fucking Bottle Dinguses Better Watch the Fuck Out

Dear Businesses of Montreal: Accept My Goddamn Bottles and Cans

Elizabeth Xu

I cannot tell you how many times it’s happened.

I’ve hauled my stinky, sweaty body down street after punishingly hot street, dragging a five-to-ten-pound bag of the sticky, disgusting cans and bottles that my alcoholism causes to quickly aggregate on my back porch.

So there I am, dragging this unforgiving load of aluminum and plastic down the street, entirely due to promises Quebec has made me that I will have my 20 to 40 cent deposit returned to me, and maybe I can use it to buy some breakfast, or some more alcohol, or something. Usually it’s more alcohol.

But, my alcoholism aside, I can’t tell you how fucking common it is for every dépanneur and mid-range marché to deny me my money. These fucking haughty clerks will glower from behind their shitty little countertops, suddenly sitting atop porcelain thrones of judgment, and let me nicely sort and lay out all my bottles and cans before them, before saying, really spitting, at me that, “No, no, absolutely we do not take your bottles, it is just too difficult, too much work for me, no incentive for me, why don’t you just take them somewhere else.”

And then I usually say, “That’s illegal. I will report you.”

And then they usually say, “Do it.”

And then I bluster and scoff and snort and pick up all my cans and bottles and rebag them in an angry huff and step back out into the unforgiving urban wilderness.

An even worse, and equally common, tactic taken by these charlatans of recycling is that they’ll only give you credit and refuse to pay you cash. This is also illegal. Even worse, sometimes they’ll try and cut deals with you, as if this is a haggling affair. “Oh, you didn’t buy these from me, so I feel like I can pay less for them.” Fuck you, you haggling highwayman.

And don’t you dare tell me to just take my stuff to Provigo, where they have a bottle machine. Clearly, you’ve never encountered the fucking gauntlet of hellishness that is exchanging bottles at Provigo. From the moment you roll your cart-o-cans in the door you’re treated like a syphilitic monster by every employee.

God, I just wanted to do some recycling.