The waste management
company for our neighborhood recently decided to change the trash and recycling
bins. They had one crew grab the bins on your normal trash or recycling day,
and another crew brought you a new one later.
The problem was that
we were out of town when they grabbed the recycling bin, which was fine because
they grabbed it the next week. However, something happened because they never
brought us a new one.
Our neighborhood is
fairly new so they're still building houses on our street. So while driving one
night, we saw a newly-constructed house that was still unoccupied. And lo and
behold there was a brand new trash and recycling bin sitting in the driveway.
So my wife and I got the bright idea to do a night raid and procure the
unclaimed recycling bin.
We thought it would
be a quick snatch and grab. So we dressed in dark clothing, waited until it was
late, and quietly drove down the street. Everything was fine until we started
to try to stuff the bin in the trunk. We didn't plan on the largeness of the
bin or the physical limitations of our trunk. I can fit three dead bodies in
it, but not one recycling bin!
I tried to maneuver
that bin every way possible to no avail. I even tried holding it to the back of
the car and roping the trunk down to hold it. Didn't work. I was growing more
and more frustrated, not to mention more and more concerned that we looked more
and more suspicious.
At one point, a man
went walking by with his dog. I hissed at my wife to freeze. So there we
stood, not moving, holding a recycling bin half in the trunk, waiting for this
guy to slowly meander by us. It took what seemed like an eternity, as his dog
decided to stop every six inches and smell something. The guy, completely
oblivious and absorbed in his phone, never looked in our direction once.
After that close
call, we resumed our heist with renewed vigor. But realizing now what a
compromising position we were in, I was all ready to tie the bin to the bumper
and just let it roll behind the car, or hang my arm out the window and roll it
alongside. I was desperate and running out of creative ways to procure this
stupid recycling bin.
That is when
my wife decided to give her first suggestion. To her credit, she had stayed
out of it and let me work through failed plan after failed plan, laughing
silently to herself as each one escalated into more ridiculousness. But enough
was enough, so she finally said, "Why don't you just put it in the back
seat?"
I sighed with
frustration at her stupid idea. But I held in most of my feelings and talked to
her in that "humor the dummy" voice that we all have and pull out
from time to time. "It obviously won't fit through the door, which is
smaller than the trunk opening," I replied. "Maybe it will, have you
tried?" she asked. "No, because I can see it wont fit. It's a spacial
awareness problem. I have always had better spacial awareness than you, so just
trust me."
Getting annoyed, she
grabbed the bin from my hands, flung the back door open, and shoved it in in
one smooth motion. She closed the door, looked at me and smiled, and said in
that "humor the dummy" voice that we all have and pull out from time
to time, "I guess you were right...spacial awareness."
In the end, I really
don't care, because I had my stolen recycling bin, which proved harder to get
out of the car than to get in it. But that's another story.
