I have a problem. My fiancee, Tay, has another love greater than me.It's called "The Precious Garbage".
Every Monday morning, the garbage needs to be taken to the curb, which is at the bottom of Tay's long driveway. Tay goes in to work a little later on Mondays, so it's up to me to cart the trash to the spot where it gets picked up.
You'd think that the process would be pretty cut and dry. As the son of a sanitation worker, who insisted that the garbage pails be put out the night before Wednesday and Saturdays' pickups for the first 18 years of my life, you'd think I have the experience necessary to get the job done.
Obviously, I forgot the part where you obsess over the trash.
You see, each Monday morning, regardless of the fact that she can sleep in, Tay bounces out of bed, sometimes as early as 6am, to get the precious garbage dressed and ready for the day. Many Mondays she gets up well before I do. No matter whether we have one bag or four, she religiously obsesses over the trash.
One Monday, I showered, dressed and thought to myself, "Wow, Tay's not up". I went to the top of the stairs of the basement, and thought about descending to get the bags and then in a fit of laziness, decided that I felt like taking amnesty from the chore for one day. Tay was still asleep, and I could just use the old standby, "I forgot". Until, of course, I opened the front door...
There were the bags sitting on the front porch! Curses!!!
When I returned that evening from work, I joked with Tay about it and called her the Trash Nazi. But even that term came woefully short in describing her depth of feelings for our refuse.
When I mention that we should be burning the paper trash in our burn barrel, she immediately went on the defensive and protected her baby saying that we lack a separate trash container for it.
Now when ever I refer to our refuse, I call it "The Precious Garbage".
People reading this blog are probably now thinking that I am embellishing the story, exagerating to make a more simple point or that Tay must think that I'm just too lazy to take out the trash.
And I might have been swayed into that mode of thinking until this Monday.
You see, Tay gently woke me up for work and reminded me about taking "The Precious Garbage" with me. Groggily, I showered, shaved and dressed and sure enough the bags were waiting for me on the porch, probably kissed goodbye by Tay before I even got my sendoff.
I dropped the bags at the bottom of the driveway and proceeded to drive the half hour or so to work. I pulled into the parking garage and noticed nobody parked there. Then it dawned on me. I set no alarm to wake me up because I had the day off! In her clamoring to see off "the precious garbage", Tay sent me to work on a holiday!
Feeling like a jackass and wanting to strangle her, I returned home.
"I told you I had the day off! Why did you wake me?"
"I forgot"
"But you didn't forget the precious garbage, did you?"
"Well, I guess not"
"It figures. You love the precious garbage more than you love me"
"Don't be ridiculous!"
"You woke me up and sent me to work on a holiday just because of your obsession over the precious garbage and it probably doesn't even get picked up until tomorrow!"
"Sorry"
And that's all she wrote. I have a fiancee who is in love with the precious garbage while only really loving "the idea of me". What's a guy to do?
