It’s over.

My pained existence as a part-time professional pop canner sunset last night, without even the slightest sense of loss.

No, I didn’t tear my hair, don a black veil or stop my clocks.

OK, it’s obvious. I hated pop-canning, although I did make $462.20 (from 9,244 cans and bottles) more than I would’ve had I never taken on this frustrating endeavor.

As much as I’ve belly-ached over the past month (as is my way) I know now that I’m not the only one who feels this way about recycling.

It’s a pain, it’s disgusting and it’s time consuming — alone, I put dozens of hours into it and drove everywhere from Allegany to Lakeside to get cans. I’m not even including what my friends did to help.

So, this is my take. The reason why people don’t recycle as much as they should is that the process is too difficult.

Stores place limits on how many empties you can redeem at a time, or they don’t keep their recycling machines running smoothly for whatever reason. And when recycling services don’t reach people’s homes in outlying areas of the county, how can you blame them for throwing their bottles and cans in the trash? I’m not condoning it. I just understand where they are coming from. Of course that’s no excuse for the nimrods who toss their empties on the side of the 101 or 42.

If Oregon wants to stay green — the primary reason why the Oregon Bottle Bill was created in 1971 — everyone, including businesses and consumers need to step up to make it happen. Otherwise, we’ll continue to have an egregious litter problem.

According to www.oregon.gov, this is how the bottle bill works: Oregon retail stores pay beverage distributors a 5 cent deposit per container of bottled water, beer and pop purchases. Consumers then pay the same deposit to the retailer when they make a purchase. After enjoying that tasty drink, that person can return his empty to a retail store in Oregon to get back his 5 cents.

Sounds pretty simple, right? It sure is if you’re a business with a scanner and a bar code.

The law also states that for each container returned to distributors for recycling, they pay retail stores the 5-cent redemption. Deposits on containers not returned are kept by the distributors. The government does not receive any income associated with this law.

Talking to the wife of an Allegany donor yesterday, she observed that it’s not really a fair system. Consumers have to put in so much more effort to get their nickel or nickels back, that it’s not really worth the time. Having done this for a month, I tend to agree. After about mid-month, it was the last thing I wanted to do.

Thanks for reading.

Willus Burgos counts my bottles and cans at McKay's.

The count down is nearly at an end. Tomorrow is my last day, and I say good riddance to pop canning — well, except for my derby league.

Seriously, I would need to be in financial straits to ever do this to myself again. Hopefully that will never happen.

At this point, making my goal isn’t even a remote possibility. Even if cans fell from the sky, there is no way I could turn in $500-plus worth in time for my deadline.

But, as my friend Jeff says, it ain’t no thang.

I’ve done well enough to make a significant dent in a credit card bill, and that’s OK by me.

I have a few bags left to turn in and am hoping to make the final push to hit $500, but I can’t make any promises — to myself, or to readers.

On the plus side, y’all can continue to read about my masochistic tendencies as I attempt to quit smoking starting July 1. Oh joy.

A lady from Smith & Barney, which is next door to The World, called me asking if I wanted some more cans. Absolutely, I told her, and walked on over. Got two bags. Thanks, Melody!

The stream of pop cans is now at a trickle, but I’m still trying to round ‘em up during off hours from the paper. For today’s lunch time, I picked up a few bags from a former employee of The World, who now works at the college.

Didn’t have a chance to turn them in yet, though. I’m also hoping to grab about a buck’s worth at a dinner I’m going to with my boyfriend and his friends.

Not much else to report, except that I’m counting down the days to the end of this project. After that, I’ll be blogging about my next Jessica stimulus effort — quitting smoking. I’ll be teaming up with a co-worker to stop this nasty habit I picked up when I was 23.

After spending the morning with Vince Swagerty, the outgoing principal of North Bend Middle School, I ran over to Epiphany in North Bend, where I traded a shirt for a vintage black slip. The owner, who I always chat with, gave me a bag of pop cans. 

Then I headed over to McKay’s where an employee counted my cans. Strangely enough, he said they still take Gatorade bottles. Last time I was there, an employee said they didn’t.  

Anyway, I made $7.90 and then spent the rest of my lunch at the Farmer’s Market sampling bread and enjoying the sunshine.

I didn’t have a chance to pop can last night, but I have some saved up that I’ll be turning in at lunch time.

With only a few days left in my pop canning misadventures I do have a game plan. Hit up the guy in   Allegany for the rest of his cans. Meet up with a few last    donors who’ve been saving stuff for me, and visit all the  parks and ball fields in the area. With luck and some rubber    gloves, I should get to the halfway mark for my can goal. 

 Not what I wanted, but $500 will get one bill mostly paid. 

 Sorry it’s been slow lately, but I’m still feeling injured and exhausted from the weekend.

If this were MySpace, my profile status would simply say bruised.

This weekend, I played in a bout with my team in Redding, where I served as the primary jammer for the Coos County Roller Girls. More like primary target.

We did fairly well considering the fact that we played with half the skaters than the other team, not to mention game-long issues with referees not calling penalties and injured players . … Anyway, I’m so bruised and battered from roller derby, that I’m not going to pop can today. I didn’t have a chance at all this weekend.

I also have a bunch of meetings tonight. So, peh.

I don’t know if it’s love, but I definitely felt something as I watched my new beau shovel pop cans into a machine at Fred Meyer yesterday.

“You owe me,” Porter joked, as I juggled my own share of empties.

He’s right. 

After work, Porter drove me to Lakeside — for the price of an Arizona Green Tea — helped shove bag after bag of cans and bottles from a donor named Nancy into his truck, and then went with me to Fred Meyer.

He could have left me with my recyclables and I wouldn’t have minded, but he didn’t. Because of him, I was finally able to break the $400 mark and we did it in less than an hour. Alone it would have taken at least two. 

 In fact, Porter has done a lot in our short relationship. He saved me when my tire exploded last week. And, among other things, he’s helped me get lots of recyclables for this crazy project.

And he says he can roller skate. Be still my beating heart. 

Don’t get me wrong. My other friends and even strangers have helped me immensley through this process. But Porter? He’s my hero.

I think we’re both counting down the days to when we can get back to a pop can-free life.

I spent most of my lunch break recycling, but only earned $12.15.  Sigh. My goal seems farther away than ever.

Hoping for a better showing this afternoon, when the new boyfriend goes with me to Lakeside to pick up more empties. Who knew romance could grow in a landscape of aluminum and glass?

Stay tuned for the next installment of “Love and Pop Cans.” Not as cool as “Love and Rockets,”  but I’ll survive.

I’m keeping this one quick: I didn’t have a chance to turn in any pop cans Wednesday, but I did get a few bags from friends and co-workers.

I’m hoping to get rid of them around lunch time in preparation for a bigger haul this afternoon. 

My boyfriend and I will be driving out to Lakeside to pick up what I’ve been told will be an 8-bag windfall. Hopefully his truck can fit it all. 

Will write more after lunchy.