Dearest Rachel –
Forgive me, honey, but I didn’t put out the garbage this week. The thing is, it’s not that I forgot to, as such…
…it’s that it wouldn’t have mattered.
You’ve heard me tell you several times over the past few days about how it’s been so absurdly cold, right? And of course, up until now, we’ve just been powering through whatever it is we’ve purposed in our hearts to do regardless, cold weather be darned.
Well, that sort of attitude can only get one so far.
I should mention that this has nothing to do with getting the bins out to the curb; yes, it’s cold outside, and none of us want to be there, but with a little effort (and the proper texture on the soles of one’s shoes), I can get them there without slipping on the ice. The problem is, is there any trash in the bins, and can I get more in before the trucks come around to pick them up?
The answers turn out to be “I don’t know” and “not a chance,” respectively.
Why? Well, because of the cold. It’s so cold (alright, honey, go ahead and say it: “How cold is it?” I know you want to) that I can’t even pry the lid apart from the can portion of either of these things. So, I don’t know how full or empty they are, and if there is room in them (which there likely is, as it tends to take a couple weeks for us to fill them up, and we did take them both out last week), I can’t put anything in if I can’t open them up.
For that matter, if the lid is frozen to the can, the garbage men won’t be able to get the trash into their truck, either – the robot arm on the front of the truck would just grab the bin, flip it upside-down over their scoop like a DQ Blizzard, and nothing would fall out for the scoop to lift into the truck bed. With that being said, there’s really no point in putting them out until next week, when I’m told we might actually have temperatures above not just zero, but the freezing mark. Perhaps by then, they’ll have thawed enough that we can actually get something into them.
A quick postscript; now that the pickup has come and gone, I’ve been able to open and peer into the bins. Neither of them were exactly full, but since Kris had been here last week, there was enough in either of them to make it worthwhile to take them to the curb – if not for the fact that they wouldn’t have been able to disgorge their contents if handled in the usual way (which is to say, without a blowtorch). Oh, well. We’re gonna have a lot to take out next week, that’s for sure.
Anyway, until then, keep an eye on us, honey, and wish us luck; we’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 