Kicking Hick To the Curb Requires a Superhuman Effort

See that? No, not the sweet little speckled pup in the foreground.

The green trash dumpster in the background. Out at the end of the driveway. Here. I'll zoom in for you. I was simply making a point that our curb is farther away than most.

Yep. That's as far as my phone will zoom. Perhaps it gives you an indication of the lengths we go to in order to have our trash carted away by a big noisy truck at 6:00 a.m. on Thursdays.

The trash dumpster used to be The Pony's responsibility, as it was Genius's before him. The filling and the transport of said dumpster is not too much to ask of a teenage boy. Not in Val's opinion. They're young and spry and only need to be reminded 10 or 12 times through the week to take a bag from the kitchen to the dumpster, and the dumpster to the curb, if we had one, by Thursday morning at 6:00.

Apparently, it's too much to ask of an adult man. Hick has been sorely derelict in his dumpster duties now that the boys are both gone. I don't mind taking out the kitchen trash whenever it's full. That's better than piling items like an unsanitary JENGA game while waiting for him to take it out. I do mind, though, taking a bag of trash to the end of the driveway. Hick took the dumpster up on the evening of August 24th, the week we returned from getting The Pony settled at college. AND LEFT IT. Left it there through Labor Day weekend, when pickup was a day later. Left it there, in fact, until Monday evening, September 12th. Uh huh. That was just this week!

I was sitting on the front porch pew, petting the dogs, having given them their evening snack while supper was cooking, when we heard Hick's car coming up the road. Yes. The dogs know which one is his. We were all surprised when it stopped momentarily upon entering the driveway. Then started again. Hick was holding the dumpster handle and pulling it alongside the car.

I call shenanigans!

If that's all he had to do, why did he wait three weeks to bring the dumpster back to the garage? He drives up the driveway every freakin' day! Let the record show that when the boys were small, Val took that dumpster up there herself, and brought it back after dumping. That was when her knees were young and spry, despite the two surgeries inflicted upon the left one in her younger and sprier days. She even used to walk this driveway for fun and exercise. Walked all around the front grounds, making a big loop across the barn field. But now her knees are gone. Val is not taunting Even Steven when she's home alone, walking up that uneven graveled drive with a yipping long doggie intertwining her feet and jumping on her heels like a middle-schooler trying to give his buddy a flat tire. In case you're not old enough, or haven't spent enough years hanging around a middle school, that's when you step on a kid's shoe heel and make him walk out of it. Jack does it quite a lot, when he's not in front of me jumping at my knees. I am leery of falling and having no one to rescue me.

Yes, Hick works a full time job while Val only hangs out at home, doing the same household chores as in days of yore. Forgive her for not wanting to dislocate a knee and lay in the driveway all day until Hick comes home (and possibly runs over her before noticing). I DID take out several bags of trash over the past couple weeks. I drove them to the end of the driveway and put them in the dumpster on my trips to town. Since Hick brought Dumpy back, I have taken out three bags. Not that Hick has noticed.

We really miss The Pony. I'm not quite ready to get rid of the only other human homestead occupant at this time. Check with me after December.