Last week I broke my in-ear headphones – the ones I use when I walk to work and in the gym.

Yesterday I fixed the problem by replacing them during a quick trip to Walmart (and I picked up some nice new over the ear headphones while I was at it, to use at work).

Last night when I got home I grabbed the over the ear headphones I use at home and unpacked my two new pairs to do a quick comparison. Both new pairs were better than my existing pair, and I was pleased.

This morning I got up and set about tidying the living room. All the packaging from the new headphones was in one of the shopping bags I had from Walmart, so I threw it down the garbage chute.

Five minutes later I go to put both the new pairs of headphones into my man bag to take them to the office tomorrow, and I can’t find the in-ear ones. After 15 minutes spent tearing my living room apart and throwing sofa cushions everywhere, only one conclusion remains. I’d thrown them out along with the packaging.

Luckily when I went downstairs to the garbage room the dumpster was fairly full and the bag I’d thrown out was more or less at the top. Luckily nobody had thrown any weird disgusting shit down there since I’d thrown my stuff out. Luckily the bag was tied and the headphones hadn’t fallen out and to the bottom of the dumpster.

This was my first dumpster diving experience, and I’m not keen to repeat it anytime soon. But at least I have my new headphones back.