Trashed

Got a call from my daughter at 8:05 AM.

Sorry, she told me, I got to work and remembered

I was supposed to drop by your place on my way.

I’ve got a lot on my plate these days. Oh (I was

intrigued), what’s going on?

Then she began to give me the lowdown on her

present situation: I’ve got to drop by my mom’s

after work to mow her lawn, and take care of a

few other things. She just had surgery on her foot,

you know.

And I’ve a lot to do getting ready to sell our house

and move. Move, I asked, where are you going? Dave

and I have decided to minimize, find a smaller place

and rent for awhile. The housing market is good, and

now is the time to get the best price on our property.

We’ll be able to pay off all our bills and have enough

left for Dave’s retirement, and to travel while we still

can. And for the next few minutes she explained her

plans in detail to me.

Do you suppose when you’ve finished at your mom’s

you could come by? It is on your way home, and won’t

take very long. A few days earlier I had asked my daughter

if she could stop by my apartment and take out my trash.

The arthritis in my hip has gotten pretty bad, and the

dumpster is quite a ways across the property.

My son usually visits me once a week and takes care of

that for me, but he and his family are on vacation this week.

They’re exploring Minnesota in a rental SUV. You’d think a

little insignificant thing like taking out the trash would be

no big deal. But when you’re disabled, your daughter has a

lot on her plate, and your son is hundreds of miles away,

sitting at home alone looking all day long at two sacks of

rubbish can be an overwhelming and aggravating sight to

the eye. Why, it’s a damned shame, and near enough to

make a grown old man cry. If I were a younger and more

able person today, I’d go on a vacation, or when I felt like

it, move the hell away. In either case, I could take the god-

damn trash with me on my way out the door.

Chris Hanch 7-10-18