Remembering Trash Day

We’ve all got duties and responsibilities, right? I mean, at work or at school or at home or wherever you spend your time these days, there are certain things that must be done from time to time, and since we’re all in this together, we all have something we are in charge of doing or making sure it gets done.

At home, I’m the primary garbage guy. While I might sometimes delegate that responsibility to someone else in the house, it’s almost always me that handles the trash.

Now, that might not seem like all that huge a burden, but you’d be surprised.

First of all, we seem to produce an awful lot of trash, like empty food boxes, discarded Amazon packaging and junk mail. We fill up the trash cans around our house pretty regularly, so I’ll make at least one trip out to the big blue dumpster each day, and that means bagging up the trash, getting the trashbag out of the can without it breaking, hauling it out to the dumpster, and replacing the bag in the trash can. Plus there are the bathroom trash cans and the one in my home office. It’s a chore, I tell ya!

But as much of a hassle as that can be, there’s nothing that compares with the Game or Remember Trash Day.

Once a week, I’ve go to remember that I need to drag the big blue dumpster out to the side of the road so that the hard-working members of the Marion Sanitation Department can come by and empty it. Miss Trash Day and you’re gambling on having to make it all the way to the next Trash Day to get your dumpster emptied. I’ve rushed out to the front yard many a time in my boxers

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and a tank-top after being awakened by the tell-tale beep of the garbage truck.

It’s a simple thing, really.

I’ve got a pretty good memory, but for some reason, remembering Trash Day is just in a cognitive blind spot for me or whatever. Even as I type this, I’m telling myself to just set a reminder on my phone, but I won’t. I’ll tell myself that surely I can simply remember to put the dumpster out by the side of the road every Tuesday night before I go to bed…

yes, I could do it sooner, but they really don’t want those big blue dumpsters out by the road unless it’s your Trash Day, so I try to wait… and then I forget.

Sometimes my wife, who leaves for work early in the morning, will see the other dumpsters lining our street and see ours sitting back by the house and she’ll take it upon herself to get out of the car and go drag it to the curb for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but it still drives me nuts that I can remember who played third base for the Atlanta Braves in 1995 or all the U.S.

Presidents in order, but I still forget to put the dumpster out for Trash Day at least once a month.

Anyway, I’ve got to run.

Tomorrow is Trash Day and I’ve got a job to do.