Posted by Jim at December 29th, 2006

Here’s a tale from the “Blogging about Totally Insignificant Things Department” of the internet…

As you know, it was Christmas on Monday which means that we end up having our garbage taken a day later than usual. This puts life out of the normal routine for a number of reasons. Normally, for example, I have to get up for a 7:00 am, business-related meeting, making it very easy to get out the garbage on time.

Making the meeting on time is a bit harder for me, but we won’t get into that.

So anyway, I was getting kids up when I heard the garbage truck stop across the street. At that moment, I realized a few things in quick succession. First that the garbage was not out. Second, that I only had about five minutes before it came back up our side of the street. Thirdly, that if I didn’t get it out, I would be stuck with the Stinking Trash of Death for another week.

I ran back to my own room, pulled clothes on and ran downstairs.

I’d overestimated the amount of time that I actually had, however, and found that the garbage truck had not only made it back to my side of the street, but had actually passed my house and stopped two houses down from me.

Yanking the bag of trash out of the can, I wrapped a twist-tie around the open end and ran down the stairs of our porch, managing to bash my leg and the bag against something in the process.

In the meantime, the garbage truck moved still further down the block.

Following it, I sprinted down the street, garbage bag in hand.

I caught up with it just two houses down from the church at the corner. The garbageman took the trash without remark. As he threw it into the truck, I noted a fairly significant rip at the bottom of the bag, but, miraculously it still seemed to be holding the contents inside. Turning around, I was relieved to find that I hadn’t left a trail of trash on the sidewalk.

When I got home though, I saw a wet pull-up (one of our kids is slightly inconsistent at night) and a broken eggshell next to the porch stairs.

I went in and got a broom and dust pan.

When I got back outside, I realized something that I’d altogether missed on the way in. A four inch wide trail of cat litter ran down the walk between the porch and the driveway.

I can think of better ways to begin a day.