A Mommy Story

You may not know this, but I live in a magical neighborhood. Not everything here follows the normal laws of the universe. Maybe it’s super science, or maybe it’s mystical. I’d swear we lived in Eureka if it wasn’t for the fact that my mail clearly says Columbus.

Our trash can has been acting weird lately. No longer content to bide its time on the edge of the street on trash day, waiting for me to eventually haul it back up the driveway around noon when I take Cordy to school, it seems bored and maybe even a little malicious.

At first it moved just a little. For several weeks, it seems to have been testing it’s powers of mobility by moving back a few feet into the edge of the driveway. I found it odd, but didn’t consider it too much. I even tried to rationalize it away, thinking the trash truck may have put it there (hard to do – it’s an automatic truck that sets the can down right where it was), or maybe the mailman was getting here early on those days, pushing the can out of the way of his little mail truck. Neither seemed likely, though.

Pleased with those early efforts, and confident in its abilities, the trash can became more bold last week. As I put Cordy in the car for school, I looked down the driveway and saw the trash can, sitting at the end of the driveway, smack in the middle. Smart trash can, that one – it knew that I wouldn’t be able to get out of the driveway without moving it.

But what it didn’t know was that my maneuverability skills are ranked somewhere up there with NASCAR drivers and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles drivers’ test administrators, thanks to years of careful parallel parking in impossibly small spaces during college. Unwilling to give in to this toddler-like demand for attention, I carefully weaved my car around it and took Cordy to school. I moved it back to the garage when I got home, feeling the trash can had a suitable time out while I was gone.

You know those sentient trash cans, though: they’re stubborn. And this one is still acting out like a spoiled toddler…or maybe an emo teen. You can practically hear it stomping its wheel, unhappy with its one chore of being forced to stand outside once a week. No, it’s determined to show me how unhappy it is and somehow make me unhappy, too.

So this morning I was looking out the window to see if it was raining yet, and I saw this:

Since I shrugged off the trash can’s attempt to be noticed at the end of the driveway last week, it upped the ante, using all of its power to move just behind the SUV this morning. And wow it moves fast – the trash was picked up just before 7am, and it had moved to its new position before 8am.

I IM’d Aaron at work to ask if he had moved the can, but he said it was out on the street by our tree when he left this morning. A quick glance further down the street showed several other trash cans still dutifully waiting for their owners on the edge of the street. Apparently we not only have high-needs children, but now a high-needs trash can as well.

Having a trash can that doesn’t like its job is no fun. City law states that it needs to be taken out of the street within 24 hours, which is about 23 hours more than it’s giving us. This trash can needs to be taught that whether it likes the rain or not, it’s our bitch and we decide when it’s done for the day, not it. Lots of other cans wait without complaint, many until the end of the day.

Next week I’m going to set up a video camera in a front window. I’m determined to catch it in action, so it won’t give me any lip with some lame excuse. Like the wind pushed it uphill, or small gnomes forced it into that position against its will, or spiteful, feral neighbors with a chip on their shoulder and a passive aggressive nature put it there to be nasty.

In its current position, of course, I will be forced to move it from behind my car before I can leave today. This makes me unhappy that the trash can is getting its way.

Any thought on how to punish a willful trash can?

Next week: I will tackle our sentient front yard, which keeps stealing the neighbor kids’ toys for its decoration, cluttering it up. It must be taught that we do not want stuff that isn’t ours on it for days.