Alrighty then

I had a bit of a kerfuffle getting back on my blog. There was some issue about signing in with a google account. Effed me up for a few days there, but I'm back.

Goooolllly, I had the worst cold this weekend. It was the craziest thing. Woke up Friday morning sick as a dog, died a little more each day over Saturday and Sunday and woke up this morning, Monday, at about 89% healed. The Employment gods messing around with me again, I guess. I never take time off work when I'm sick but lately I've been saying, "Next time I'm sick I'm going to take a couple of free days off like everyone else does". But no. I get sick Friday and I'm better Monday. It's so not fair.

I did take a couple of days off last week, though, just because it's pretty slow right now and I have so many holiday days to use up. I went in to work on Tuesday morning at 8:30 and decided to come home an hour later. I went into my boss' office and announced that I was going home for 2 days. He said, "Oh no! Are you feeling sick?" (oh, how prophetic) and I said, "No, I feel just perfect. I'm just going to go home and clean up my storage room". And he said, "Oh. Okay.".

Tuesday and Wednesday I went mad, cleaning our computer room upstairs and the storage room downstairs (I have 2 adult daughters who have both moved in and out of this house twice, leaving copious amounts of crap behind with each move) and I collected about 8 bags of garbage which I promptly tossed in Mr X's truck box so he could haul them to the dump. There were bank statements and bills from about the last 5 years, old school notebooks, junky clothes, broken candles, things I honestly didn't want to recycle; I just wanted to rid my life of. (So sorry Al Gore; forgive me just this once.)

So, anyway, on Thursday night Mr X has to go play hockey and of course needs his truck. It's full of garbage and the dump is not open in the evenings. We have these vile garbage bins in the alley -- 1 bin for every 6 houses or some such poo -- and Mr X decides he's going to just toss everything in a bin. So I go along to assist. Ah, but not OUR bin. He chooses someone else's bin, for whatever reason.

Picture us driving stealthily up the alley in the dark. It's Thursday evening. We stop, open the bin (oh! it's empty!) and begin the toss. Suddenly I see him in the window of a nearby house. Looking at us. The Garbage Nazi. He has both hands at the top of his window; curtains pulled back, all aggressive and manly. He Sees All. I'm afraid. I want to leave. Mr X keeps throwing things in the bin. I get back in the truck. The light comes on in back of the house. He's coming out. He comes out of his yard, up to the truck. Mr X says hello and keeps tossing bags. The bin is full. The Nazi looks at our licence plate and goes back in his house. He's not as brave as he appears. Still, I was getting panicky. Mr X wasn't fazed in the least, but I had visions of bylaw officers and hefty fines running through my head for hours afterward.

As it turns out, nothing happened; at least not yet, but really, I suppose, other than the obscene amount of trash, we didn't do anything wrong. We aren't actually assigned a bin and this particular bin was on our street, but still. I am Canadian, Mennonite, female, a Virgo and a younger (but not youngest) child. I'm born guilty.

And when you think about it, really. Who sits and watches their neighbourhood garbage bin from their window and takes the licence number of someone who dumps therein? Someone who needs a hobby, that's who. I think he'll be the next neighbour I curse. The last one died. But that's another story, for another day.