By the bag, the can, the bottle, and the flask
Trashed on September 29, 2024.
I have always wanted a method by which to keep the voluminous amount of trash I generate from blowing about my front yard as it waits patiently for the city trash men and women to pick it up. And this week I learned how to do this at long, long last: The recent invention of trash “bags.” And for those of us who prefer something harder, trash “cans.” And indeed I always prefer the hardest ways in life. (There are also trash “bins” and trash “barrels,” and even the rare trash “bottles” and trash “flasks,” but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.)
“Where have these wondrous trash receptacles been all my life!? This is just like when I learned I can recycle toilet paper!” I gawked in awe. Becasue shot me a quizzical glance. I took another sip of my coffee and turned the page of the Bouillabaisse Boulevard Bulletin. It was morning and the ritualistic breaking of fasts had commenced.
“Don’t you look at me like that now,” I intoned. She always looks at me like that now. Yet my voice left no doubt: If my lovely huzzey-muffet looked at me again like that, I would sternly run away in sheepish fright and hide in the doghouse—unless she put me there first. I took another sip of my newspaper.
Today’s top story was President Piggy-Man touting the fact that his approval rating is highest among both coal miners and coal rollers, and this is why we should naturally vote for him—two or three times to ensure he wins. Last week he was going on about how repealing the ban on cadmium in breakfast cereal would create jobs. It was going to be a long election season. I turned the page. Then I threw it in the trash can—my newfound friend. So much belonged in there, truly. The greater part of the world probably belonged in there. I harrumphed and stood, stretched, made indignant meeping noises, and walked to the window. There in my front yard were thirty more shiny new trash cans—all filled to the brim with trash. I smiled, satisfied.
A small army of trash men, trash women, and trash geese had just finished hauling my fleet of trash cans over to their trucks and dumping them in. After breakfast, I had quickly scurried down to the Spend-O-Mart and bought as many of them as I could stack on my poor Trabi’s roof, then ran about my front yard like a methed-up chipmunk, filling each of them to the brim—and beyond. This was the glorious result.
As I deposited the last piece of litter into trash can №26—a cracked VHS tape with a worn-off label and full of ants—I had reflected on how today was another fifth Sunday—oh, how I hate you so!—which also reminded me I had yet to solve the latest quandary in my life: Were garloids just Grunnelsby Wyverns in rubber suits?
At that moment, a particularly plump garloid oozed by in search of more ants to slurp up. It had squirmed out of trash can №28 when a particularly burly trash man hoisted it above his head and marched it over to the truck. Other trash men were doing the same. Trash women stood idly by and stared. And the Trashmen quietly sang “Surfin’ Bird” in the background. It was going to be a long day. I went to turn the page but then remembered my Bulletin was already squarely deposited in the bottom of trash can №13 and most likely soaked with garloid mucus and doG-knows what other viscous, snot-like fluids. The bird was the word—and a long day it was going to be.
Another garloid oozed by, mivulating obscenely and leaving a fine trail of shimmering mucus along the grass. Luckily there were no horses nearby to add to the schlurpkh. I looked around—where were all these garloids coming from so suddenly? Certainly not the chipmunks—they had all been packed neatly into trash can №8, buried under several feet of nuts. And certainly not my own beloved 5½-foot-tall girl–chipmunk—she was busy in the kitchen cooking up another batch of corn nut soup and golden cornpone stew. I wondered—how many more em-dashes could I jam-pack into this paragraph without my Editor bonking me over the head for being a big doofus? And—were Becasue’s own feet buried under several feet of nuts, too? Would more visages of an ebony statue stomping on my face unfurl in my dreams tonight? Or would Becasue stomp on my face for being a big doofus?
And what of those trash bottles and trash flasks I had wondered about earlier before a shinier, puffier thought had pushed them from my mind? What kind of trash would fit in those? What size and shape would it be? Would a colony of ants follow? Could I squeeze a whole chipmunk in one? Were there even trash bongs out there? There were so many trashy questions I could ask! I looked around again and that mucous garloid had vanished—but there was now, at the end of that mucus trail, a fat and rather satisfied-looking em-dash sitting there in the middle of my lawn. If I had a newspaper, I would have turned the page. If I had a comma, I would have stabbed it. (Oh, there’s one.) Instead I went back inside to eat some sweet, sweet corn nuts and my sweet, sweet huzzey-muffet.
The trash dumpster was on fire again. The trash trucks wouldn’t go anywhere near it in that state, I realized. Such timid creatures! What to do? And how did the dumpster get to be so ablaze? Was garloid mucus flammable? Was horse mucus inflammable!? Were there arsonist hamsters nearby??!! Then I realized my grave mistake: Earlier, I had plucked out all my nose hairs so I could count them. But by doing so, the number of nose hairs I now had was zero. (Unless I missed one.) Such quandaries plagued my daily life. But since today was not really a day, in any sense of that word, I wondered how this quandary had plagued my life today. And what of that dumpster fire?
I looked down. My whole lawn was now covered in garloid mucus. I tiptoed back inside my palatial abode, leaving sticky footprints everywhere and an even bigger carbon footprint behind me. I intended to deal with the quisquilian conflagration the best way I knew—by pretending it didn’t exist.
Tiptoeing at an end, door shut gingerly behind me, I let out a deep, sonorous sigh of relief. Thick, greasy smoke was rising high above my house—all 157 floors of it—but the geese would take care of it. Or the gnomes. Or the Grunnelsby Wyverns. Then I realized another grave mistake: What if the trash feeding the fire was reproducing faster than the flames could keep up? It would never go out!
I let out a deep, sonorous sigh of strangled frustration. After that never-ending fishpile, the last thing I wanted was my own perpetual fire. What to do? Oh, what to do? I remembered some advice my dear old Mamårp had given me when I was a Pnårpling: There’s an easy way to do most anything—and there’s a hard way. And I always prefer the hardest ways in life. I fetched a cup of water and went out to the dumpster.
The whole dumpster had fit nicely into a trash compactor, I later learned. And the compacted trash—crumpled dumpster and all—had fit into a yet bigger dumpster. And then the trash truck had come along and picked up the whole basural assemblage. Thirty-odd trash cans still lined the sidewalk in front of 229B Bouillabaisse Boulevard, but they were all empty now. And none were afire! Trash bags hung from every tree—all empty now. And none were melted wreckage! A single trash bucket—actually more of an empty, five-gallon bucket full to the brim with garbage—sat on my stoop. Clouds shaped like trash bongs passed lazily overhead. Becasue and I were both trashed. We stared up at the clouds and giggled like geese. Like trashy, trashy trash geese.
Someone asked me once, “If I printed out your blog and laid the pages end-to-end, how many trash cans would they fill, Pnårp?” I shot back: “Did you know that north, east, west, and south can be shortened to ‘NEWS’?”
Someone asked me once, “If I printed out your blog and set it on fire, how much CO2 would it emit, Pnårp?” I shot back: “And, did you know that the shortcuts for new, open, close, and save can be shortened to ‘NOWS’?”
Someone asked me once, “Is your carbon footprint bigger or smaller than your shoe size, Pnårp?” I shot back: “Furthermore, did you know that the National Odd Shoe Exchange can be shortened to ‘NOSE’?”
Now no one talks to me anymore.