My grandmother has given me many things to laugh about over the years. I have to give her credit as a contributing editor to my sense of humor.
I remember staying with her as a child and watching the “garbage ritual”. Every night she would wrap the dinner scraps in waxed paper then tightly secure that bundle in an empty bread wrapper (this was pre-ziploc gramma) then shove that in a paper milk carton before hiding the whole thing in the bowels of the garbage can.
Now you may be formulating a variety of reasons why she would go to such effort to protect the world from bread crusts and cucumber peels. I myself had foolishly formed a few hypothesis as a young child. Gramma didn’t like things that dripped. Maybe cucumber peels degrade and produce copius amounts of liquid. Gramma didn’t like things that were dirty. She had, and I’m sure still does, the cleanest garbage can I’ve ever seen. I’ve purchased new garbage cans that would have been embarrassed to be placed next to hers.
One day I just couldn’t resist and asked why she did it. You won’t guess why. Go ahead try! It seems Gramma felt that if her garbage smelled the garbage men would go back to the garbage truck garage and talk about the lady with the smelly garbage. NOT KIDDING! So lately I’ve been thinking about Gramma’s garbage ritual but for completely different reasons.
Every Wednesday night, I initiate procedures put in place to rid us of the castoffs of life. I begin by locating the garbage can under the mound of trash that has grown up around it since no one but me knows how to change a bag. I then look for Wal-mart bags to place the rest of the stuff in because I can’t find the box of garbage bags. (NOTE TO MEN: Hiding the box of garbage bags does not provide you with an adequate excuse.) Once I feel the pile from the kitchen corner is under control I begin to move around the house dragging a bag behind me and collect the debris that wouldn’t fit on the kitchen pile. Now, as in most houses with females, this excess debris often consists of “bathroom garbage”. You know what I mean. Little mysterious bundles of paper and yellow plastic wrappers. Mummified celebrations of yet another moon phase of infertility. (Given, this is not a happy occasion for all but been there, done that three times, VIVA LA PAPER MUMMY!) To finalize the garbage procedure, I dutifully haul all the garbage out to the road for our waste disposal engineers to cart off and dump in a planet-destroying-landfill.
Now one would think I’ve fulfilled my part of the garbage disposal contract. I’ve contained it and taken it to a mutually agreed upon location for pick-up. One would think. Unless ones neighborhood is plagued by a smartass whose sole purpose in life is to unbundle garbage once it has been placed curbside. And spread it around. At the edge of the road. And leave it there. For the whole world, and the garbage men, to see.
Now I, as I’m sure you have, at first thought this delightful garbage undoer had four legs and answered to a snappy name like Rufus or Snickers. As this would be a logical thought for a naive person I did the logical thing and worked to thwart the culprit. I poured amonia on the garbage to make it more stinky (sorry garbage men at the garbage truck garage). No luck. I bought cans with lids. Not happening. I double bagged and triple boxed and hauled meer hours before impending waste disposal arrival. Not a chance.
I went out this morning to haul the cans back up to the house and there it was…….again. Now this wouldn’t be so unusual if there had been food scraps or other fun things to chew blowing across the yard. I could have continued with the dog theory for yet another week given the randomness of the evidence. But what did I find? Bathroom mummies. ONLY bathroom mummies. Bathroom mummies that had been carefully tied up in a plastic shopping bag then crammed into a packing box then buried in the bowels of the garbage can. (It’s apparently hereditary) The box was in a bag with kitchen garbage. There should have been other waste among their ranks. But no. ONLY bathroom mummies.
Now I ask you, how exactly did Rufus/Snickers untie the bag and open the box to snif in only the bathroom garbage? Was the little canine culprit so fascinated by the happenings in our bathroom that it overlooked the odiferous offerings from the weekly refrigerator purge? Or could something more sinister be happening? Could it be that the daily routine of a waste disposal engineer is such that he or she finds it humorous to drop little embarrassing bundles on the road in front of your house then park around the corner with binoculars and wait for you to notice? (I wonder if there are UTUBE episodes dedicated to waste disposal pranks.) Or should I be a little more nervous by this phenomenon. Maybe aliens are zapping my garbage on board their ships at night and for some unknown reason the tractor beams are unable to suck up bathroom mummies. Or could it be that the mafia is leaving them lined up on the side of the road as their way of saying, “We know what you’re doing in there and we’re watching you.”
Regardless of when, how, or why, I decided I have only one option left. Next time, I’m dropping off the bathroom garbage at my gay friends’ house. Let the aliens ponder THAT for awhile.
