Farmer H Takes A Dump...ster

As you may recall, the Hillbilly family pays a pretty penny for a big green trash dumpster that is emptied once a week. Unless there is ice on our gravel road. Or snow. Or a 25% chance of rain. It's a major-name trash service, but the service part is questionable.

Anyhoo...a couple months ago we had a problem with the lid. The middle of the handle was cracked, making it almost impossible to get a grip and haul that two-wheeled dumpster down the long, long driveway. Farmer H has connections, and called his work rep at the trash service, thinking we might get special treatment, meaning a timely replacement of our dumpster. We've had it since The Pony was born. Except for when we parked our dumpster at the end of the driveway one Wednesday evening, and pulled another one back up the next afternoon. Don't know why they switched it out randomly, but it was the same style, just a slightly different color, with a different serial number.

Anyhoo...the dumpster sits barely under the edge of the carport. I'd take a picture, but my android phone has a beef with Gmail's outbox, and I can't just post pictures all willy-nilly anymore. The dumpster has to leave room for Farmer H to back his Olds Toronado out from the carport once every blue moon when he takes a notion to drive it. Which he did last weekend. And for me to walk past it every single evening, twice, unless I've been to the casino.

I am the one who takes the trash up and brings it back, now that the #1 son had the gall to go off to college, and his replacement, The Pony, left the state to avoid this chore. I have a spot where I park that dumpster. A spot midway between that darned ugly paint-needing decrepit picket fence Farmer H put up, and the side of the Toronado. There's room to back it out without hitting the side mirror on it, and room for me to squeeze by between the dumpster and the fence.

Sunday evening, I didn't walk, because I figured my casino workout would substitute. On Monday, I noticed that the dumpster was all cattywompus. I couldn't squeeze by without sidling like a wishful, yet deluded, circus fat lady through Fat Man's Squeeze at Rock City, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. As I investigated further, making mental notes for The Inquisition of Farmer H...I saw that the front of the dumpster was cracked! Caved-in! Broken and flappy!

I asked Farmer H if he ran over the dumpster. He denied it. Funny how I didn't notice that the dumpster was cracked when I had pulled it back down the driveway on Thursday evening. Farmer H further added, "I don't know what them trash men did. They must have hooked it up to dump it, and dropped it."

Let the record show that back when I used to get up before 7:00 a.m., I saw the trash men many a time, and they do not hook up our dumpster to anything. They reach inside and pick up the bags and toss them into the back of their garbage truck. That's why I was mortified when Farmer H tossed a meat tray inside without benefit of a trash bag. I knew one of those trash men would have to touch it, if the smell when he opened the lid didn't make him keel over.

I'm pretty sure there's more to this story. One thing I know for sure. Farmer H is full of garbage.