“Trash Can Casualties of War” – No Can Left Behind
“Trash Can Casualties of War” – Chapter 1: No Can Left Behind
It was two weeks past, on a Sunday Evening, when the forecast was calling for Wicked Winds that night and the following day – trash pickup day! We’ve all experienced at one time or another, a wicked windy trash day, cans blown over, trash blowing down the street. My rule of thumb has been, pick up neighbors trash that has reached the front of my house, and someone else has responsibility for my trash in front of theirs. It’s sort of an unwritten rule, no one has actually voted on this yet in the neighborhood, but unusual circumstances require sensible deeds…I’m not going to chase an empty plastic bottle down the street, where every time I bend down to grab it, it blows three more feet, reminding me of my (d^@khead) friends when I go to open the car door, and they lurch forward, until they have forced me to yell, “will you knock it the f#@k off, and open the f#@king car door!”
That Sunday evening I was traveling, so obviously not at home, when I saw the forecast on my phone. I texted Terry, and said the following…EXACTLY…”Don’t put the trash out tonight or tomorrow, going to be extreme winds, so you don’t want to deal with that…see you tomorrow night.” I was proud of myself, for this foresight, and sharing the wisdom with Terry……
Late the next day’s afternoon I pulled into my development, Terry not yet home from school. The streets looked like downtown Beirut, you know, if the warring were just over trash cans and lids. Cans were all over the street, trash on people’s lawns, lids in trees, oh the humanity!! But, the Madison’s would be survivors, as we had planned for war!
I turned onto my street, casualties were strewn all over the block…I quickly scanned the dead lying across the battlefield, and did not see my big black trash can, with attached hinged lid, red handle, and wheels….an expensive one, nothing but the best for my trash!
Ok, good, I thought, Terry had followed ‘orders’, and a field promotion would be forthcoming. I pulled in the driveway, opened the garage door, and immediately saw IT! No, not my Deluxe Model 450 Rubbermaid Roughneck, but the EMPTY space in the garage it usually occupied! My can was GONE! How could this be, I explicitly covered this with Terry the night before!!
I immediately ran back outside, onto the field of misery, I was not about to leave any trash can behind! I ran up to and knelt beside badly injured and scarred trash cans, that from a distance looked like mine, they were too damaged to help, the only thing I could do for them was hold their handle as they slowly passed to that great trash heap beyond.
But no where to be found was MY can, I called out “Blackie, Blackie” to no avail. It was gone, I had a feeling as though from a thousand feet above, I was being looked down upon: just me and a hundred trash cans thrown about, all on their sides, but for one, my Blackie….
“Trash Can Casualties of War” – Chapter II: Terry returns (when I write it)
(Blackie as a new recruit)
