Trash Tension

Aside from the dogs barking every time they hear a possum pass gas within a mile radius, the house is usually a quiet place. Oh sure, the MIL has the TV cranked up but that’s quite normal. There’s just one day that really stirs the pot around the Big House. Trash day.

You see, we live in the county and there’s no trash service provided by a municipality. So instead of paying for trash pickup like many of our neighbors, we drive 6.5 miles to dump it off at one of the county provided sites. It’s not a big deal, but someone around here MAKES it a big deal.

If you’re a regular reader of this award-winning blog, ahem… then you probably guessed that the someone is the MIL.

Now don’t get me wrong. The woman is a vital cog in the machinery that makes up our home. I just don’t understand how she goes about doing some things.

Today, for example, I’m going to take our trash and recyclables to the dump site. When I said that last night, the MIL nearly jumped out of her housecoat to begin wrangling all the trash within the walls of our home.

I missed going last Friday because of some issues with plantar fasciitis. I thought that I’d get to it on Sunday, but I still wasn’t up to the task. Monday, it got even worse. Then the dump site is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The recyclables were running over, but no one seems to understand how to gather them all in the large garbage bag that I use for a liner in the smaller receptacle of the two that we have in the house. So, I pulled those out and combined it with the others to keep the peace. You’d be surprised how quickly all those little Lime-A-Rita cans are able fill a standard office trash can.

Thursday has arrived and the dump site is open once again. Since the trashcan outside is getting full, it needed to be done today instead of waiting for the usual day that I do it… Friday. Jamie also chimed in on the recyclable stuff with her sarcasm. “I guess that I’LL have to do it on my day off Friday.” Yeah, she’s a subtle one.

Again, the MIL sprang into action last night after hearing of my devious plan to go off the standard protocol. She doesn’t move that fast until you mention taking the trash. Then she becomes Sonic the Hedgehog zipping from room to room snapping up any trash that comes into vision. She gathers all the little bags from bathrooms and bedrooms. She even pulls out the liner from the tall kitchen can whether it needs it or not. IT ALL MUST GO! It wouldn’t surprise me if she went through the dirty laundry to search for things in pockets that need to be discarded.

Personally, I don’t understand the overwhelming sense of urgency to get every scrap of refuse out of the house. It’s not like we’re never going to the dump site ever again. But for the MIL, the urgency is real. I don’t know if it’s from some mental scarring as a child. Perhaps she lived in a home filled to the rafters with trash. Maybe she believes that the garbage will all gather on its own while she slumbers to create a trash monster. One day the monster will wake her while standing over the bed just before crushing her to death. I don’t know.

I just need to add it to the long list of the MIL’s irrationality and start ignoring it instead of trying to understand it.