W.I.S.M.I.M. (Part II)

I feel dirty. And although I had my hands in three different dumpsters today, that is not why.

After the move we had a lot of boxes we never unpacked and an abundance of broken down cardboard boxes that all found their way into the garage where I swear they multiplied and then never left (much to the Corolla's chagrin). We decided, with the weather starting to cool and everyone coming here for Thanksgiving, that it was time to tackle the nightmare that had become the garage.

First we needed storage, so we went to Lowe's and while I was there I stole a workbench. Not on purpose mind you. We had multiple big pieces on the cart and I swore the girl hadn't scanned all of them. I pointed this out ("I don't think you got this one") but she assured me she had. I didn't check the receipt until we were gone and I was right. Six items instead of seven. $88 undercharged. Do I go back to Lowe's tomorrow and tell them or will they just laugh at me?

Strike one against my karma.

Then we faced our biggest problem - how to get rid of the 5000 moving boxes; you can't just leave them on the curb because 5000 is an ungodly number of boxes (4999 = perfectly holy, 5000 = ungodly). So we decide to take them to a dumpster, which I was not thrilled about because of my past experiences. I don't think I ever told you my shameful dumpster dumping story. I'll sidebar it, if I already told you just skip over it.

-- SIDEBAR -- When we first moved to SoCa, it took the city two months to start picking up our trash. Let me paint this gruesome picture - two flippin months worth of garbage, in the South, in July. At first the garage starts to smell, so you put it outside. Then the neighbor's cat starts shredding the bags so you have to bring it back inside, but as you are moving them you notice each bag is now swarming with all sorts of nasty bug things. You get the idea. We really had no choice but to get rid of it - trailer park style - sneaking to a dumpster and throwing a whole car full of trash bags away as fast as possible, preferably in dark clothing to avoid detection/stains. This worked very well until lada got caught - at the new outdoor mall - by a guy who rides around in a golf cart all day. I leaned against the car to wait while he called for backup. Backup lady comes up and whips out her very official looking notepad to write down my information.
Fine, write me a citation or whatever and I will be on my way. But the security guard freaked out when she found out I didn't have my license on me. She started making up laws, telling me it was against the law to drive without identification and she couldn't legally even let me get back into the car. I tried to explain that I did in fact have a license; I just didn't have it on me (who brings their handbag to illegally dump trash?) She was muttering about her duty to call the police but decided to call for MORE security back up first. This time I was lucky enough to get someone who had a bit more perspective on the situation. He told the ticket-happy lady that I looked over sixteen, so I was probably fine to drive home. Good times -- --

With that debacle in my history, I was not thrilled about having to abuse dumpsters again, but we had no choice if we were to be rid of this plague of cardboard. So, Russ and I drove around trying to find ideal dumpsters: dark area, empty parking lot, trash bin with a lot of room.
We had to make five trips to get rid of everything - two behind Piggly Wiggly, two in a Baptist church parking lot, and one at a new home building site on the other side of the neighborhood. We pull up, cut the lights, unload as fast as possible while keeping watch for approaching authority figures, jump back into the car and then speed away. Yes. Oh Yes. I am shady-mcshade.

Strike two. My soul is black. I am a bad, law-breaking person. What goes around comes back around.

My bad vibe balancing solution: On our last dumpster run, we drove past a McDonald's bag someone had tossed in the middle of the road. I made Russ slow down and scoop it up so we could throw it away - we were already heading toward a giant garbage can. We were doing our part to keep Columbia beautiful. Take that bad karma.

If you're ever on Jeopardy: If you have a tape worm, and you put your head over a pot of coffee with your mouth open the tape worm will crawl out of your mouth and extend toward the coffee, therefore you can just grab it and pull it out.

- lada killed Colonel Mustard, in the ballroom, with the lead pipe