Trashcanpalooza

If you diligently follow my blog I think it is safe to say that a lot of what happens to me is the same stuff that happens to the "everyday Joe". I like to think that my life isn't so much about drama, but rather it's more about the fact that I can sometimes see a strange, warped humor in day to day life and I'm not afraid to give people a good laugh at my own expense.

Now that I've prefaced today's blog...wait 'til ya' get a load of this:

Last night we had more of those damn Chinook winds! They were whipping through here at about 100mph. If the winds aren't bad enough, today just happened to be trash day! The trashman generally hits our neighborhood between 6:00 and 6:30 in the morning. Taking the trash out in the morning isn't really an option if you want to be sure your trash gets picked up.

Considering that the winds were predicted to last through the night, like any woman in her right mind, I had contemplated not taking out the garbage. Reality quickly set in when I suddenly remembered why the trash HAD TO GO OUT! You see, way back in mid-January we had a few of Eric's colleagues to the house for a small housewarming type gathering. Eric's friend/boss had decided to make some type of seafood dish which included squid. When Troy took the squid out of the bag he could tell by the smell that he had just purchased rancid squid! The beauty of Alaska is that instead of throwing the squid in our trashcan to sit and rot, we were able to throw the bag on our front porch where it would freeze and would be stench-free until we put it in the can on trash day.

In theory our plan was a good one, but as you might imagine, things went awry! We forgot to put the squid in the trash on trashday. I decided to leave well enough alone and left the bag of squid on the porch until the next week. As luck would have it, that week was the first time we had experienced high, gusty winds. YEP, you guessed it...when I went to retrieve the squid it was MIA!

I was convinced that the squid was no longer our problem and I was actually kind of amused by the thought that some unsuspecting neighbor would eventually find our bag of rotting squid on their porch or in their yard. Of course, things couldn't be that easy. Apparantly some time later Eric came upon the bag, knew exactly what was inside it and, unbeknownst to me, set it in the snow on the side of the house and forgot about it. By the time he rememebered the bag was still around, an animal of some kind had been poking around and had torn the bag a bit. I wouldn't be surprised if the nauseating smell of rotting squid scared it off! Anyhow, last week Eric finally decided enough was enough and put the bag in the trashcan inside our garage. He warned me not to open up the can and I didn't!

Last Wednesday, after I had taken the boys to school, I brought the trashcans in. All was right with the world and our squid had finally been disposed of. Or had it? As the temperatures warmed up I noticed a foul smell in the garage. It was coming from one of the trashcans. The cans should have been empty still, but there was no mistaking that there was something stinky in one of them. I investigated inside the cans one more time and realized that a small Home Depot bag was still stuck to the bottom of one of the cans. One whiff and I knew immediately that the squid was in that lone bag, stuck to the bottom of the trashcan! Wednedsay was still days away, now what? Brilliantly, I filled one of the other trashcans, held my breathe, threw the bag of squid on the very top and closed the lid for the rest of the week. I'm not kidding when I tell you that I then proceeded to spray Fabreze in the initial trashcan, so it wouldn't stink all week. My plan had worked...until...the winds kicked up last night!

It doesn't pay to have precocious thoughts about neighbors inheriting my stinky garbage. I really paid the price this morning. I took the trash out last night and slept like crap not just because of the wind, but because everytime a gust came through I was picturing my trash strewn across the neighborhood. Around 6:30 a.m. I finally heard the trash truck. As soon as I was sure the trashman was gone, I decided to go see if there were any cans to retrieve.

On my way down our loooooong driveway I slipped on a piece of black ice and fell HARD! I caught myself with my wrist and arm (they're a little sore, but I don't think I broke anything), but I still fell so hard that my glasses flew off of my face and I immediately had a headache. After I recovered, I proceeded down the drive and discovered that all three of my trashcans were gone. I quickly scanned the cul de sac and saw one of the cans lying in a slushy snowbank. I brought it in and promptly took some ibuprofen.

I warned the boys that on the way to school we would have to scavenge the neighborhood looking for our trashcans. We drove very slowly down the street and sure enough, in the neighbor's yard, a few houses down, Logan spotted another one of the cans and we were able to find all three lids. I put all of our treasures into the back of the car and continued to drop the boys as school. As we were driving through the neighborhood there were trashcans littering the road and ditches. Kaiden commented that it was "trashcanpalooza". I don't know where he came up with that phrase, but it was pretty much right on.

You're never going to believe this, but when I got back home and was reassessing the trashcan situation I noticed that one of the cans still has...one bag of trash in it! Do you think it could be the squid????? What are the chances????? I think I'm just gonna' put the lid on the can and I'll wait for Eric to deal with it when he gets back into town. That sounds like a plan to me!!!!!!