TRASHED

I swore I would never tell anyone this story.

So if you’re reading this, please don’t tell anyone.

I have a reputation to maintain.

It was a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Maybe a Tuesday. You know what? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was daytime. Broad daylight. Which means there is absolutely no excuse for what happened next.

I got out of my car holding my keys in one hand and an empty coffee cup in the other. The black trash can was sitting in the driveway. Simple enough. Open trash can. Throw away coffee cup. Go inside.

My brain knew the assignment. My body did not.

I opened the trash can and threw my keys into it.

It took me a second to fully process what had just happened. I looked at the empty coffee cup in my hand. I looked into the trash can. I looked back at the cup. Somehow, when presented with the choice between the thing that unlocks my house and starts my car and a piece of garbage, my body had decided to protect the garbage.

I looked into the trash can and spotted my keys. They weren’t that far down. So, I did the sensible thing. I decided to lean over the side of the trash can and grab them.

A little context. I am 5’8 1/2”... Maybe. Probably not.

Honestly, I don’t know how tall I am anymore. I have told the lie of my height for so long that I am no longer entirely sure which part is the lie.

My driver’s license says I’m 5’8 1/2”. At my physical last year, they measured me at 5’7 1/2”. I asked the doctor to measure me again because “I’m 5’8 1/2”. It says so on my driver’s license.”

He looked at me with a smirk that said, “You must’ve lied to the DMV.”

How do I know that’s what his smirk said? Because immediately after smirking, he told me directly to my face, “You must’ve lied to the DMV.”

I don’t go to that doctor anymore.

Not because of this. He moved his family to the East Coast.

Anyway, I could reach it. It’s just... I could not reach it... yet.

I’ve learned from my kids that when you can’t do something, you just throw a “yet” on the end and keep trying until you can.

It’s a wonderful lesson. This was not a wonderful application of that lesson.

So, I kept leaning. Leaning. Almost. Just a little farther. And... BOOM.

The entire trash can went crashing to the ground, with me inside of it.

One second I was a grown man of “some height” standing in my driveway with his future ahead of him. The next, my legs were sticking out of a trash can like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz if the house had been a trash can.

I was trashed. Literally. It smelled like trash and meals and gunk and funk and nothing that I wanted to be a part of.

I frantically dug through the mess looking for my keys, myself, and whatever dignity might still be salvageable. Eventually, I found the keys. I crawled my way out. I stood up.

And somehow... I was still holding the coffee cup.

That damn coffee cup!

I threw the coffee cup away, picked up the trash can, and went inside for a deep, deep cleaning of myself, my clothes, and my ego.

I swore I would never tell anyone this story.

So if you’re reading this, please don’t tell anyone.

I have a reputation to maintain.