The Good Deed Punishment

No good deed goes unpunished. But sometimes, the punishment does not fall upon the good-deeder... 

Like when a driver decides to stop and let somebody pull out of a side street, or make an oncoming left turn in front of him. Only that driver knows his intentions. Putting on his brakes and coming to a dead stop in the middle of the road is not a circumstance that can be foreseen by the cars behind him. So they must all slam on their brakes to avoid rear-ending him and each other. By doing a good deed for ONE driver, the good-deeder has inconvenience many, and risked an accident.

Like when Child Val's beloved grandma would care for her on those rare days when Val could not attend school due to a fevered virus. Grandma would wrap me in a "quilt" made from enclosing an army blanket in felt material, and put me in her swivel chair that she'd moved in front of her fireplace. Then leave me watching TV as she went about her daily chores, having just gotten home from her night shift working at the state mental hospital. There I'd sit, the left side of my face bubbling and melting (or so it felt) until I was in need of a Phantom of the Opera half-mask. I didn't dare complain to my beloved grandma, who was only doing the good deed of caring for me while I was sick.

Saturday morning, Hick left for his SUS2 (Storage Unit Store) around 7:00. At 7:30, I heard my little Jack barking on the front porch. It was his STRANGER bark. With added growling. That little dog has to growl pretty loud for me to hear him through the front wall of the house, while winds are whipping around at 45 mph. I was almost tempted to get up off the short couch and open the front door to investigate. But the warmth of my fleece throw, and thought of the wind forcing open the front door, kept me put.

When Hick got home around 1:30, having curtailed his business at my behest, not needed to overextend himself during his time of hip pain... he said,

"Somebody brought our dumpster down the driveway and put it behind the Gator. I guess it blowed out in the road, so they brought it all the way back."

"That was nice. But how are we going to get it back to the end of the driveway??? I can't pull it up there. And you sure can't, with your hip hurting. We've left it there for at least six months!"

"I don't know. I guess I'll take it..."

"I can follow you in T-Hoe, and drive you back to the house. Or maybe The Pony can come out on his day off, and take it back."

Here's the thing. We are not very mobile at the moment! This is a hardship, even though somebody thought they were "helping" us. Help would have been to put the dumpster where we leave it, at the end of the driveway, and lay it down so the wind can't catch it.

Later in the evening, Hick had figured out who did it. I guess he put out a thank-you on the Facebook page of our enclave, and the good-deeder spoke typed up.

"Sonny said he stopped and had his boys pull the dumpster down the driveway."

"Did you thank him?"

"Yeah. But I wanted to say, 'Can you stop again, and have your boys put it back at the end of the driveway?'"