Gordon and Ilona’s Excellent Garbage Adventure

Taking a break from the blog fixing – which is kind of making me want to scream at this point.  I think I hate the pale blue sidebar but not sure yet what would look better.

I am a writer.  I am not a website person.  I want to write about shapeshifter spies in the swamp, instead of trying to figure out why, oh why, does this premium theme not display sidebars correctly and why do I have to load my own into it.

Anyhow, as you probably recall, sometime ago I waxed poetic about the wonders of the local trash removal system.  Long story short, neither city, nor Waste Management, which the city contracted, nor the county was able to pick up my large scale items.  So we finally bit the bullet and found the landfill.

At the landfill entrance, nestled in the lovely southern greenery among the gorgeous pines and oaks, a friendly landfill attendant informed us that for $38.49 we could dump up to 1 ton worth of garbage.  Of course there was a catch: ever time we dumped, whether it was a ton or not, it cost us $38.49.

Now since the garage was chock full of trash, we quickly realized that we needed a larger vehiclein which to haul our trash.  So we went a rented a moving truck.

(Stop snikering, please, I am not done with the story.)

We shall name this truck company Shmenske, to protect ourselves from their wrath on the odd chance they somehow stumble on our blog.  So here we are in possession of a 16 foot large yellow Shmenske truck.  We park that sucker in front of the garage and start tossing.

This is a small list of what went out:

• Old cat tree, approximately 50lb, we made it ourselves and it was lovely, but there is no space for it
• lovely wooden bed, once property of Kid 1.  Kid 1 hated the not-black bed and its not-black drawers,  and demanded to have it removed.  I, because I was tired at the time, said, “Fine, if you want it out, darling, take it out.”  See, I knew full well that the bed would not go through the door – it was assembled in the bedroom and I assembled it. Kid 1 broke the bed to pieces, therefore solving the logistics issue.
• lovely metal bunk bed, once property of Kid 2.  See the previous entry, except she didn’t ask, she just wined at me and made “woe is me” eyes, until we removed it, also breaking it accidentally.
• lawnmower #1, which I bought for Gordon.  It was an expensive lawnmower, he hated it it and used it twice before breaking it.  Accidentally.
• lawnmower #2, which I used for quite a long time last summer, before Gordon used it twice and broke it.  In his defense, he since got the lawnmower he wanted from Wal-Mart and used it the entire summer with no problems whatsoever.

We shall now pause while I knock on wood and spit three times over my left shoulder, or the lawnmower will breaqk, and I will be blamed for jinxing it.)

• Assorted storage shelves, which Gordon dragged home from his job, when his job decided to throw them out.
• More assorted shelves and furniture pieces.
• A few more.
• Old mattress.  We shall not go into why.

Also they almost succeeded in throwing out wooden pink closet doors with obscenities written on them, but I stopped them by pointing out that people who buy the house may want to use said doors, if they were repainted white.

So we are loaded up, and happy with our spiffy empy garage, we packed the kids into the cab – they wanted to go – and took off for the landfill.

We drove up onto the scales and the friendly landfill attendant assured us that we should just follow other trucks up the road and we couldn’t miss the dumpsight.

So we followed.  Picturesque countryside slowly floated by.  Kids chirped.  Sun shone.

Pavement ended.

That’s okay, the Shmenske truck had no problem with hard dirt road.

We round the bend and see an enormous dirt mountain.  You have to understand, Lowcountry of Georgia is flat.  And here, in the midddle of all this flatness, is the huge mountain.  The dump trucks are going up this mountain.  There is no road, there is only dirt with track vehicle tracks on them.

No turning back now.  Up the mountain we go.  As we drive up, I notice the mountain black.  Georgia’s dirt is red, not black.  We get closer and see turkey vultures.  Hundreds of them, perched one next to another.

Swarms of turkey vultures are watching us go up.  The truck is creaking.  The stench is blinding.  The kids are be wildered.  We keep going.  Up.  And up, and up.

Gordon looks at me and says, “I hope the axle doesn’t break.  Because if it does, we’ll have one hell of explaining to do to Smenske.”

I can just imagine.  “No, no, we have no idea how the truck ended up on top of a giant mountain of garbage.  We must have gotten lost!”

Finally we find a place to dump.  We leave the kids in the cab, put on the hard hats and vests we were given, and jump out.  And I immediately sink up to my ankle into rancid dirt.  We climb into the truck’s back, while the garbage guys are looking at us as if we sprouted chandeliers on our heads.  We dump our stuff, climb back into the cab, and begin our slow carefull descent off the mountain.  Truck is rocking and screeching.  Vultures are staring.  Kids are pinching their noses shut.

We pay our $38.49, get home, throw away both pairs of shoes, and wash, clean, and scrub the truck until it no longer stinks.  We Febreezed the damn thing.  And then we turned it in with no issues.

I love my clean garage, but I don’t ever, ever want to do this again.