Monday, December 15, 2008

Hauling Trash

The 40-yard dumpster arrived shortly after I posted my last blog.

I was feeling really lazy ~ desperately wanting to take a nap. But after a few games of Mah Jong (all of which I lost ~ really tough lay-out), I summoned enough energy to put on my waffle-stompers and work gloves.

And off to work I went.

The bags were all wet from the rain that we've been having. As such, it did not take long before my work gloves and the legs of my jeans got soaked through.

Not liking the feeling of wet gloves on my hands, I went inside to put on a pair of vinyl gloves underneath the sopping wet gloves.

As I was hauling the trash bags to the dumpster and conscientiously arranging them in an efficient pile along the front wall of the dumpster, I was growing more and more resentful that, once again, I was the only one doing all the work.

And believe me, not only was this grunt work, it was also dirty work. Not only did my jeans get soaked, they also got caked with mud from the bags that hand been lying on the ground.

Neither Ariana nor Richie were home. And with each bag that I brought to the dumpster alone, I was getting more and more angry at being the only one working.

Actually, it was one of those paradoxical situations. I was mightily pissed off over not having any help. Yet on the other hand, I was inwardly gloating, "Look at all the work that I have done myself!"

And I was going a good job.

I was maintaining a tight and compact pile of garbage bags along the front of the dumpster. Not only that, I was maximizing all the space possible by tossing garbage bags higher than my own head.

It was like a game, seeing just how high and how accurately I could toss a bag of trash. And for the most part, I was pretty much dead on with my tosses.

Yay! Amazon Woman!

I had just finished with the back of the house when Richie finally showed up to help.

"It's about time!"

I had Ritchie start with the easy stuff, like picking up all the strewn trash from when the dogs ripped open the garbage bags.

That was because I really did not want to speak and go into an explanation of how the dumpster should be loaded. After all, I was still steaming. And whenever I opened my mouth to speak, I was barking madly at Richie.

I told him that he had the easy part of the job.

"Do you want me to load the bags?"

"No! I'm still pissed, and I need to work off my energy."

Yeah, when I am steaming mad, the best thing for me is to immerse myself in heavy physical labor.

And perhaps that was why I was able to toss those bags so high and so accurately.

As Richie continued working, I started mellowing. The fellow was putting in some honest hard work. And when I see someone making a good effort, I tend not to stay as angry for too long.

It was hard work, especially since my shoulder on occasion gives me a hard time, and I cannot wear shoes other than my sandals for more than an hour without having the ball of my right foot starting hurting like the Dickens.

But when I'm driven, I just work through the pain.

It's really quite funny.

Here I am, obsessively busting my butt when my natural inclination ~ or preference ~ is more towards the couch potato side.

I would much rather be sitting on my butt, either behind a key board or with a crochet hook in my hand.

But at the same time, I am capable of being a maniac work horse that doesn't know when to stop.

By the time we were done, I was a mud ball ~ my jeans soaking wet and caked with mud.

My hands were wet from sweating inside the vinyl gloves. I could feel all that wetness squishing inside my gloves.

But here, look at what we did.

As you can see, there is still lots more room for more trash.

(By the way, Amazon Woman here hauled that chair into the dumpster all by herself. And it was not a light weight chair either, having gotten heavy from getting water logged from all the rain we've been having.)

I told the kids that tomorrow we can play "bombs away," and start tossing stuff that we don't want out the loft door.

That should be a lot of fun.

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