The Bad Bag: My Most Foul Bachelor Thing

After moving to Los Angeles and graduating into adulthood. I had to do grown-up things like buying dryer sheets, furniture and household appliances. Like so many young men, It took me a while to get a vacuum.

As a technology enthusiast and frequent sufferer of buyers’ remorse, the time between realizing I needed a vacuum and actually getting one was far too long. After a few years of living in filth and reading about suction, I ponied up for a big, badass, bagless Dyson.

The vacuum’s first outing pulled a lotof terrible things out of my carpet. Emptying the canister into a garbage bag and feeling the weight of the dust and debris that I had collected from the carpet was tangible. I made my world better every time I filled the bag.

This led to one of the most foul habits of my 20s. Everything the vacuum picked up would be emptied into one garbage bag, sitting on my apartment’s tiny patio. Over time, it came to be known as The Bad Bag.

Years passed in this large, fully-carpeted apartment. I got a cat. I clipped my toenails and ate crumbly food. The forests and brush around Los Angeles burned, depositing ash everywhere. Every time I emptied a canister into the bag, I knew I was making something unholy and dangerous, but I couldn’t stop. I was secretly impressed by the sheer weight of detritus that my carpet once held. It was a re-assurance that my investment in the Dyson was a good one. I twisted the top of the Bad Bag to seal it off from the world, and I twisted the Bad Bag itself into proof that I was living a neat and responsible adult life.

I started seeing the bag as a weapon; an insurance policy. I knew that if I was ever wronged, the day would come where I could sneak it into somebody’s open sunroof and unleash a fury of dead skin and dried up hairballs. I could mail somebody the Bad Bag, or pour its contents into a pillowcase. The Bad Bag enabled the dirtiest fantasies of petty revenge. Every time I cleaned the house, I was making my weapon bigger, more powerful. I never denied a contribution to the Bad Bag.

Six years after that first canister, I left my apartment and my bachelorhood behind. I was moving in with my girlfriend, who made many compromises for me. The Bad Bag was not one of them. It didn’t matter that the collection of reeking, grey grime justified my small appliance purchase, or encouraged my dream to make a Home Alone-style booby trap. The Bad Bag was very carefully placed into a final extra-strong Hefty bag and thrown away, discarded amongst my other foul bachelor things.

Our new house didn’t have any carpeting, and the ass of our new Roomba emptied into the kitchen garbage bag, which was taken out regularly. This is how grown-ups use grown-up appliances. This may be a much cleaner way to live life, but there is some magic missing.

The Bad Bag is still out there somewhere. It’s comforting to know that on one sunny day, the bad will expand and the bags will split open. All of the crumbs, nose-hairs and spiderwebs inside will break down into dust and find their way into the sky, contributing to a brilliant sunset. The particles will then drift back to earth, and alight in a forgotten corner of my hall-closet. The Bag may fail, but the Bad is always with us.