An Insult To The Pigs

The sunrise this morning.

My side job, which enables me to help with the bills and debt, is purely based on the selfishness and basic thoughtlessness of the human race.  Picking up trash off the ground in designated parking areas and sidewalks, changing trash cans, and cleaning up around dumpsters has been a part of my life ever since a couple of years ago when I started helping my husband T.J. with his weekend side work of doing the same thing.  It's like seeing, smelling, and handling the bottoms of everybody's shoes and changing everybody's diapers for them.  T.J. hates it, but I have learned to enjoy many aspects of the work and tolerate the rest of it....mostly.  Until I sling a wet trash bag a bit carelessly into the dumpster and it sprays me in the face with noxious juices, or until I find that somebody has used my parking lot as their personal lavatory and I have to clean up the aftermath.  Ewwww.  Just ew.  I kiss the feet of the person who invented disposable rubber gloves!  Here are the few things I enjoy about this job.

❈I have the privilege of making a small corner of the world cleaner.  Yay!

❈I get to indulge in my bottles and cans collecting fetish.  It isn't that I think recycling in and of itself is such a hot idea (I will save further thoughts on the subject for a different post), but it's free money!

❈I find treasures almost every day!  Everything from a heavy, beautiful desk in perfect condition, to a lovely hardback anatomy book with colorful pictures that I rescued.  It's fun never knowing what I'll find next!  People throw away the darndest things.

❈I am forced to get up early in the morning.  I hate getting up, but I love being up!  Everything is quiet and dark and fresh and new, and I have the world to myself.  I make coffee, pray, think, check Facebook, and enjoy the sunrise.  Oh and I get some work done too!

❈And, the best part, is the sweet paycheck I claim as a reward for my labors.  I love how T.J. and I are partners who share the burden of supporting and caring for our little household equally.  I perform extremely valuable labor taking care of our children and upkeeping our house.  But if I want to earn a little actual dough as well, my amazing hubby is fully supportive!

So anyway, this is what you will find me doing every morning at 5:30 A.M.  Cleaning up people's filth.  It's an insult to the pigs to compare the shit I find to them.  No, humans are not as filthy as pigs.  I've raised pigs before.  They are dirtier than pigs.  Just saying!  Respect the bacon.

May 2015

I will close with this poem by one of my favorite auhors, Shel Silverstein.  Always take the garbage out, people!  And please make sure it goes completely into the dumpster or trash can.  Thank you! 😁

SARAH CYNTHIA SYLVIA STOUT
WOULD NOT TAKE THE GARBAGE OUT

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout 

Would not take the garbage out! 

She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans, 

Candy the yams and spice the hams, 

And though her daddy would scream and shout, 

She simply would not take the garbage out. 

And so it piled up to the ceilings: 

Coffee grounds, potato peelings, 

Brown bananas, rotten peas, 

Chunks of sour cottage cheese. 

It filled the can, it covered the floor, 

It cracked the window and blocked the door 

With bacon rinds and chicken bones, 

Drippy ends of ice cream cones, 

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel, 

Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal, 

Pizza crusts and withered greens, 

Soggy beans and tangerines, 

Crusts of black burned buttered toast, 

Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . . 

The garbage rolled on down the hall, 

It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . . 

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, 

Globs of gooey bubble gum, 

Cellophane from green baloney, 

Rubbery blubbery macaroni, 

Peanut butter, caked and dry, 

Curdled milk and crusts of pie, 

Moldy melons, dried-up mustard, 

Eggshells mixed with lemon custard, 

Cold french fried and rancid meat, 

Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat. 

At last the garbage reached so high 

That it finally touched the sky. 

And all the neighbors moved away, 

And none of her friends would come to play. 

And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said, 

"OK, I'll take the garbage out!" 

But then, of course, it was too late. . . 

The garbage reached across the state, 

From New York to the Golden Gate. 

And there, in the garbage she did hate, 

Poor Sarah met an awful fate, 

That I cannot now relate 

Because the hour is much too late. 

But children, remember Sarah Stout 

And always take the garbage out!

Shel Silverstein, 1974