Mental slowness is one of the side effects of both the Vicodin I’m taking to manage the pain related to my cancer and the chemotherapy to treat the cancer. It’s a side effect that is supposed to worsen over time so I figured that one week into the treatment, it wouldn’t be an issue. Boy was I wrong.
I use a dishpan under my sink to collect my recyclables so that I don’t have to go out to the garage to drop off each individual container. The dishpan was getting full so today I walk out to the garage to empty it into the cart. The recycling cart is split down the middle and has a blue side for containers and a green side for paper. Normally the green side is on the left and the blue side is on the right but when I got out there today they were switched around.
My first thought is that the lid must have just fallen off and got put back on the wrong direction so I open it up and discover that it’s bolted on quite securely so it falling off isn’t even possible.
My second thought is that my next door neighbors unbolted my lid, switched it with their lid, and then put my lid back on their cart the wrong way. Why I would ever think that requires a bit of a back story:
Shortly after I moved in, my next door neighbors tried to recycle old paint by precariously balancing it on top of their recycling cart. The paint spilled all over their cart and they have been trying to switch carts with me without me knowing ever since. I figured them out and solved the problem by writing my house number on my lid.
But I checked the bottom of my cart and it was paint free like it’s supposed to be so obviously my neighbors had no part in the change in my cart.
So my third and final thought was that the city must have changed the configuration of their recycling trucks and unbolted and turned around the lid.
And doesn’t that seem like a completely reasonable explanation? So I dumped my containers in the blue side and went out to lunch with my parents.
I knew I wasn’t feeling well today so I had them drive and when they dropped me off after lunch, I asked them if their recycling cart had gotten switched around too (because obviously, if the city had to switch mine to accommodate the new trucks, they’d have to switch all of the carts in the whole city).
My dad, who took my garbage and recycling carts out to the street and back this week since he was stopping by my house those days anyway, says “Oh, maybe I just put it in backwards.”
And I think “Oh! That makes so much more sense!” All I need to do is turn the whole thing around but it took hours to figure that out.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hahaha oh dear… that sounds like something I would do, and I have nowhere near your excuse.
I’ll be praying for you while you go through all this! My boyfriend’s mom just went through chemo etc — it sucks but you’ll make it! Visualize your immune system as an invisible uber-badass ninja warrior, and kick that cancer’s butt!!
*huge non-awkward cyber hugs*
December 22, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Haha…Regarding recycling bins and neighbors – I had a similar issue with my neighbors and our trash can a few years ago. We lived in a townhouse, so everyone took their trash cans down to the same curb and then back to the house at the end of the day. I couldn’t ever figure out if they kept taking my trash can because they were idiots and thought it didn’t matter which trash can they took, or if they just liked mine better. But I liked mine better too, gosh darn it, and I wasn’t about to let them keep it! One day, I actually snuck onto their porch and stole it back.
And then I did like you – wrote my house number with permanent marker on the side.