A Trashy Story

I was making Sangria and cutting up all that fruit made me want to take the trash out so the fruit-guts wouldn't seep all over. Reasonable, right? And since I am a smarty, I decided to multi-task and take all of the trash down at the same time and then take a quick drive to the redbox and return The Wrestler and She's Out Of Your League. Odd combo, but both worth the $1.25 rental cost. By the way, not the redbox on the corner, the one 0.6 miles away that had Big Fan available per my iPhone app - thus the drive.

So here I am in my yoga pants and t-shirt with the wine stain (aka the cooking shirt) and I gathered up my three trash bags - fruit guts, bathroom, and used kitty litter. I grabbed my purse and movies and locked the door and started down the stairs. That is when it happened.

The plastic handle on the bag of kitty litter broke and the bag dropped on the third step from the top and literally exploded all the way down the steps. Every step all the way down had litter clumps of cat pee and the kitty-roca-turds scattered. It was a masterpiece of epic proportions, getting as much distance and separation as possible.

I did what any sane person would do, I put my purse and other two bags down in front of my door and went inside to get a broom, dust pan, and new bag and then painstakingly picked up every piece of wayward litter. I finished at the bottom step and not wanting to risk another bag-plosion, I left the broom and dustpan at the bottom of the steps and took the new litter-trash out the back gate to the dumpster.

That is when I realize that my gate key was in my purse (dang the yoga pants lack of pocket) and my purse was sitting in front of my front door alongside my fruit-gut trash bag and bathroom trash bag.

My broom and dustpan sat at the bottom of the stairs, mocking me from within the gates. I yelled. I shook the gate. I cried. And then I said a silent prayer that I had been wise enough to take the extra minute to put a bra on which doesn't always happen when it's just taking out the trash.

After a long 10 minutes, I saw a glimmer of hope. There riding up on his bike to the front gate was my neighbor! My heart sank though when he yelled to me "I forgot my gate key, can you help?" Seriously? So there we were, two idiots at opposite gates yelling to each other and waiting until another neighbor finally came and rescued us.

My purse, keys, bathroom trash, and fruit guts were all patiently waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

After the Love

Driving home late last night I caught a glimpse of something sad in the alley. There, next to the dumpster, was a sure sign that the romance has disappeared for one of my neighbors.

There it was. A valentine's teddy bear, thrown away like garbage.

But not even like garbage... I mean garbage at least makes it into the trash can!!! The owner of this bear must've been so over the teddy-bear-giver that she couldn't even bother to lift the lid...and make the effort to get the discarded love-token actually into the dumpster. So there it sits... next to the dumpster. Beat up and dirtied, waiting for a dog to come by and pee on it.

It inspired me to write a poem... a haiku if you will... in honor of this sad site:

Next to the Dumpster

She must hate his guts

Tossed away with pure disdain

Teddy bear trash heap