History contained in plastic bins

Rubbermaid saved my life. Pieces of my life, anyway. Important pieces, like my grandmother’s China dishes, Christmas decorations collected over 15 years, and photo albums from the 1970s. Also, LEGO sets, my beloved building toys that I’d carted from apartment to apartment, then from my hometown to a new city in a new state 1,500 miles to the north.   

When the apartment I had recently rented in Spokane burst into flames one September afternoon in 2002, my prized possessions were stored in 10-, 14-, and 18-gallon Rubbermaid plastic bins. Their uniformity in design, no matter the depth, made the containers easily stackable and I had learned that I could rely year after year on finding the same bin for sale at stores like Target or Home Depot. Lesser brands changed colors and sizes and shapes from one season to the next.  

The explosion that set off the fire came from a barbecue propane tank on a second-story deck immediately behind the apartment complex. Next to the grill, a smoker had been left unattended and a spark ignited the gas tank. Of all the residents in the eight-unit building, only two of us were home. Myself and an elderly woman on the first floor. She owned a little dog. I had a cat. The only pets living in the complex. We all got out safely. 

My neighbor and I - I wish I could remember her name, but it was 12 years ago and I had only lived in the place for three weeks - sat on a low, stone wall across the street watching the firefighters and holding tight to our spooked pets. Some minutes into the disorienting events, I realized I had saved, well, practically nothing. 

We often hear stories of people grabbing photo albums, jewelry boxes, things that are irreplaceable, as they run out of burning homes. None of those things came to mind until I sat on that wall. Instead, as I was scrambling for my cat, I thought of my backpack. I knew it would have in it my car keys and wallet - it had been a longstanding habit of mine to leave those two things always in the same place when at home. Also, I knew there was a hard-bound copy of my master’s thesis in my backpack. I had finished graduate school three months earlier and in the chaos of the explosion I was dimly aware of wanting to preserve my work. 

So, sitting on that wall, it began to sink in, I might lose my computer, my books, my photo albums and scrapbooks, all the copies of the newspapers and magazines in which I had published work from a previous career as a journalist. I watched the building burn and understood that my history was very possibly turning to ash, or getting drenched by fire hoses. 

Curiously, I wasn’t frantic at the thought of losing the treasured pieces of my life. I have my memories, I told myself, and those are perhaps the most precious things any of us can carry from place to place. A photograph snapped of me that day suggests that the lack of dread at losing everything was at least partially shock. My girlfriend at the time rushed out of work to join me at the scene and must have had her camera in her car. When the fire had been completely doused, I moved back to the apartment side of the street to await instructions of what to do next. Just prior, she had taken me to a nearby market so I could use the restroom and bought me an iced tea. I sat on a different low wall and, honestly, I don’t remember much of what I was thinking at that point. But a week or so later, when I saw the photograph for the first time, I thought it was the loneliest thing I had ever seen. She had captured a moment when as far as I knew the only things I owned were the clothes and pack on my back. Even my dear, sweet cat had clawed herself loose from my arms and ran down a nearby alley. I wasn’t at all sure I’d see her again. 

My second-floor apartment was tucked into the north corner of the building and, in the end, sustained only smoke damage. Albeit, the most unbelievable damage I had ever seen. Much of what was cleared out of the apartment still was not salvageable, even after my renter’s insurance paid for professional cleaning and decontamination. But my history, the things that tell the story of who I am, were barely tainted. The Rubbermaid bins had to be discarded and replaced, but the contents were spared all of the greasy film and carried only the faintest odor left by the black-like-midnight smoke. 

I’ve added a few bins since those days, also sturdy wire shelves on which they are stored. It may look a little obsessive, or at least a tad too tidy and too organized for some people. I love it, though, because that fire taught me how much I do care about my life story, how I’d like to pass on some of the precious things that speak to who I am and how I became her.