Garbage Day

Its amazing to me how two little words can bring such instant tummy clenching dread. Garbage day, or rather the night before garbage day, in our house, is an awful stressful nasty event.

It starts with Bill, around 3 in the afternoon making a lound announcement, "Its GARBAGE DAY tomorrow! I have to get all the garbage out." We all kind of suck in our breath and pretend we didn't hear. Then at around four he makes the announcement again. And again we all kind of shake a little and don't say a word. He continues these announcements until late evening when he finally gets up and starts organizing and taking out garbage. And thats when the shit ALWAYS hits the fan. I will explain how this came about.

Back a few years I did the garbage. Everything got hauled out and tossed into the big green bin on wheels. Then, along came recycling. So I did put the occasional blue box out half full of recylables and half full of stuff I thought was recyclable. Then, one day, when Bill had stuff he wanted to chuck, and I told him there were rules and we weren't aloud to throw that stuff in the regular garbage, he simply took over the garbage day routine. And everytime he got a notice, sticker or fine for doing things he wasn't supposed to, and every new garbage rule that came out, his whole garbage day attitude deteriorated. His attitude is solely responsible for the following actions and reactions from our household members as follows:

We are scared to bring out garbage from our bedrooms. As a result we end up with quite an accumulation. Finally it becomes imperative that we put out that garbage. The moment he sees it he becomes huffy and viciously yells " So you are just saving it up. There is only so much room in the bin and you just have to bring that out don't you? What do you do? Just keep it til its so huge that blah blah blah blah and so on and so on yardy yardy yardy" until we just wish there was no such thing as kleenex, old socks, labels off new clothes, paper cups, etc... What the hell are we supposed to do with this stuff if not put it in the garbage?

April lives downstairs. Her garbage is her business, not Bill's. But Bill insists on opening up all the bags and dumping the garbage into the bin and spreading it out....supposedly to make more room than if it were still bagged. But then he starts looking at it and later makes comments like, "must be nice to be rich...you can just throw out perfecty good food. And why are you throwing out running shoes? They can go to the clothes for poor people bins. And pizza boxes can be recycled. They don't care if theres food all over it!!!" Meanwhile she is remembering the personal personal garbage she also threw out and is about ready to die of embarrassment. Some things fathers just shouldn't see.

But.....the one that really gets us is when he shouts "Who put this f..... can in the garbage?!!!" Now, we have just had endless company and different people in the house, who bless them help clean up. They don't know about Garbage Bill and will accidently put a can or recyclable in the garbage. The conniption fit this creates in Bill is ridiculous. And no matter how we explain it he just continues to freak. Honestly it is just stupid.

And finally when he has it all organized and ready to be taken down to the curb in the morning, he will ask April, "When do you go to work?" She always answers "7:30. I will take the garbage down, don't worry (the truck comes at 8)" And then he will spend the whole night waking up until around five he gets up, wakes up the whole household, gets the dogs going, stomps outside, drags the bin down to the curb, turns on the tv, grinds coffee and sits down in the living room. So flipping annoying!!!!!! Then when the truck comes, he always, and I mean always, watches them pick it up and drive off. He turns around with a smug smirk on his face and does a little victory grunt. Its like "beat the garbage man" every week.