Friday, July 18, 2008

Trash and Testosterone

Every year the city has Big Trash Day. They will pick up and take away pretty much anything you can haul to the curb. It's kinda cool to watch. A huge dump truck and a somewhat smaller truck with a set of Tyrannosaurus rex jaws work together. The T.rex bites up the trash and spits it into the dump truck, then the humans who follow after take brooms to the scattered remains of the heaps.

Big Trash Day isn't on the same calendar date every year. Some years it's in June, sometimes July or August, once in September. You never know from one year to the next.

I think Big Trash Day is the Engineer's favorite day of the year. He dreams about it all year long. By January, he can't stand it any more and I am assigned to call the city and find out when. This year it's supposed to be the week of July 21st -- next week.

The Engineer and I were sitting at the picnic table eating dinner last Sunday and he was talking about Big Trash Day. He was feeling a little distressed that our across the street neighbor had already started on his heap, whereas the Engineer had nothing on the curb yet. He was working out his strategy for a giant heap, when I asked him, "Aren't you leaving for Canada Sunday?"

He replied, "No, no, I'm not going to Venezuela until the first of August."

"But aren't you going to Canada next week?"

He turned and looked at me in astonishment. His jaw fell open. He said something I'm not going to quote on my P.G.13 rated blog. I felt like I'd just stabbed an ice pick into his balloon.

I tried to convince him that having the biggest heap in the neighborhood for Big Trash Day did not reflect upon his manhood, but he wasn't buying it.

He's been scheming harder than ever all week. He is determined.

I just hope he doesn't do anything drastic.

Last year's heap.

2 comments:

bioephemera said...

the hilarious thing is that i, too, love trash day - but when I lived in the Bay Area I'd go out on trash day and gather things for craft projects! I got leather suitcases, tables, ladders, flowerpots, antique dishes, etc. Lots of other people would do it too. It was kind of fun to say hi to the other gatherers as you passed them on the curb. (Obviously this only works in an area where most of the waste is the equivalent of what would elsewhere be yardsaled).

Iron Needles said...

ahhhh....big trash! I would keep an close eye on him, I think.

PS. Baby kimono = super duper easy knit, but also very rewarding!