Adventures with Trash

I have to tell this story because it's so surreal and too funny not to pass along.

Yesterday I am at the office and I get a phone call from my wife. She is obviously upset and in need of assistance, whether it be emotional or physical is yet to be determined. Here is how the conversation began…

I answered the phone with, "Hello."

"I hope you are having a good day because mine is shit…" she says.

See, I could tell she was upset right away. "What happened?"

This is where the conversation took a very weird turn… "You know that TV you sat out with the trash, well a lady pulled up in her car today and went to take it. I hate people taking stuff from our trash, but I figured it was 'trash' after all, so what the hell. I yelled to her as I was walking next door, "Go ahead, you can take it. It still works."

"Ok," I replied, "so what's wrong?"

I think I should explain a little here. I am in the middle of a summer remodeling project and had accumulated a large amount of trash this week which included and old 27" console television. Yesterday was trash pick up day so our front sidewalk was covered in a couple dozen extra large sized lawn trash bags, cardboard and, of course, the 27" television.

"She looks up at me," my wife continued, "and she was obviously off her rocker." Apparently, she had a crazy eye or something which frightened my wife. "She puts the TV in her trunk then turns around and tells me that her daughter just left her because she had a baby and she is now all alone and doesn't have any money. The closer I got, I could tell she was either drunk or stoned out of her gourd. I'm thinking, 'Holy shit, this lady is fucking nuts.' Then as I get closer I notice she has a bunch of trash bags in her backseat so I get a little closer to investigate. Sure enough she has three of our trash bags in our backseat. What the fuck?"

At this point, I have a pretty vivid picture in my mind's eye of the situation, but I keep my mouth shut in fear of giggling into the phone. "Go on," I urge my wife.

"Well, I turn around and say, 'What the hell lady?' when I realize she is now ripping out the trash bags in the yard and going through them." My wife was getting pretty excited in her recounting of the events…

"I screamed, 'Jesus fucking christ lady, what the hell do you think you are doing?' At this point, she turns around and starts screaming back that she was going through my garage sale stuff… I told her we didn't have a garage sale! She says that there are prices on stuff and shows me a sheet of price stickers that you threw away. I think they were for work. I don't know so I grabbed them out of her hands and started pulling the trash bags out of her car…"

"Were you polite or pissed?" I asked without thinking.

"Polite?! Hell no, this crazy bitch was drunk and God knows what she was doing with our trash.. did you have any sensitive material in there? That's it, we're getting a shredder for the house today. Anyway, the neighbor comes out because of all of the screaming and tells me that I shouldn't talk to this lady that way because she was obviously a fry short of a happy meal. That pissed me off and I told him that it was 'nunya" and to get his ass back in his house. He said he called the cops already. Just then the trash truck comes around the corner and the biggest, scariest black man I've ever seen gets out of the garbage truck and says in the deepest voice I've ever heard, 'Miss, do you know this lady?' Then he points at the crazy lady ripping open the rest of the trash bags."

At this point I had to cover the mouth piece on the phone… no way around it, I was losing it.
"'No!' I screamed then realized that he was trying to help. I politely apologized to him and told him she was stealing my trash. He didn't say a word, just stood there taking it all in."

"I turned around and told the lady that the police were coming and that she needed to pick up the mess she was making because it wasn't fair to the garbage man, who was now leaning against the back of his truck enjoying the show. She drops all the trash in the yard, then starts yelling at me about being a bitch and that I can't pick and choose who comes to my garage sale. That's discrimination! This is when the garbage man starts crackin' up and tells the lady that she needs to leave before the police come and take her away in a padded van."

Then my wife went silent on the phone. "Honey, are you ok?" I asked.

"That crazy bitch just stands there for a minute, then calmly walks over to her trunk, reaches in, grabs the TV, lifts it up as high as she could then looks at me and says, 'You can keep your TV.'" My wife held for a dramatic pause… "Then she dropped it right there in the middle of the cul-de-sac. The TV literally exploded and glass went everywhere. I just watched as she shut her trunk then pulled away. Everyone was speechless."

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed. This was priceless. I wish I'd have been there.

"I spent the next hour, first helping the garbage man load everything up. He was so sweet.. I think I am going to write a letter to his boss. Anyway, then I was out in the street for what felt like forever picking up and sweeping up glass, plastic and TV shrapnel. I mean it EXPLODED!" Then she just sighed.

After a few moments of silence, I said, "I told you you should have tried to the sell that TV on Craig's List."

She hung up on me.