…And Then I Scared the Garbage Man

Saturday morning I ran 12 miles. Saturday afternoon I grocery shopped.  Sunday morning about 5:30, JJ woke me up to let me know, so kindly, that he had thrown up. One of my least favorite parts of parenting, right there. :/ My kids never seem to make it to the bathroom, and since we have carpeted floors upstairs…

I cleaned up that mess, and then went back to bed for another 45 minutes before getting up and going to church with Jamie. By the time the afternoon rolled around, JJ was feeling tremendously better, and all was well again.  Monday, the kids went to school, and Monday night we all watched taped episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway while I wrote up my last post. I figured I do the pictures and post it Tuesday night.

Tuesday morning at 12 AM, Jamie came into my bedroom to tell me that he had thrown up. Once again, since my kids never seem to make it to the bathroom… :/ But wait, there’s more! Like, literally there was more, because he threw up once again on his way to the bathroom from my bedroom. And let me tell you, that kid has a big stomach. It took me an hour to clean up after him, and by the time I was done, I decided that I needed a new vacuum cleaner, and the whole upstairs should be steam cleaned.

Poor Jamie was up most of the night being sick. 🙁 I left a pot and a bunch of towels in his room this time, and, thankfully, that made the mess easier to clean up. I sent JJ off to school Tuesday morning, and Jamie and I stayed home. We both slept until about noon, and then, when I woke up, I started to feel awful. It was that morning sickness kind of feeling, where you want to be sick, but you aren’t. (No, I’m not pregnant.)  I managed to go out and pick JJ up from hockey practice that night, after my husband had dropped him off on the way to work. I stopped at Bob Evans on the way home, which is my source for food whenever I’m feeling sick…mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, and chicken soup. (In another post, I will lament about the fact that Bob Evans dinner rolls have gotten a hell of a lot smaller since the last time I went there, back before I started eating healthy. Like, half the size!)

I fed Jamie some mashed potatoes, but my stomach didn’t feel well enough to eat more than half a roll. We all went to bed at 8 PM, and then, it was my turn to be up most of the night.  🙁  In between being sick, I lay there in my bed, barely able to move, and all I could think about was the fact that in just 11 days, I was supposed to be running a marathon!

I was able to get the kids off to school on the bus Wednesday morning, but then, after sending my boss an “I’m not coming in” email for the second day in a row, as well a few more emails that had to be done for meetings that day, I crawled back into bed and slept until about 11 AM. With the kids at school, and my husband asleep (did I mention that he was working this whole time, so I was totally solo every night?), I actually had some peace and quiet to myself. I was finally starting to feel better, so I made an English muffin, had a little bit of coffee, and I actually sat down for the first time in forever and watched a chick flick all by myself. I decided I need to do that more often. 🙂

By the evening, I was feeling much better.  I even managed to eat dinner. I went to bed at 9:30, but then, because I slept away most of the last two days, I lay there for an hour and a half, unable to sleep. Of course, all I could think about where all the things I had missed at work, along with my impending marathon. :/

Thursday morning, my alarm went off at 4:30, and I found I had gotten enough rest over the last few days that I was actually awake enough to get out of bed at about 4:45. I had already skipped my three-mile run for the week, and I didn’t want to miss another one. So I got up, got myself dressed, and went out on the road for a 4-mile run. I must admit that I’m glad that, if I was going to get sick, it happened during my taper time, but not the actual week of my Marathon.

I took it slow, trying to keep it about 11-minute mile, although the wind was a bit challenging going to the east. I passed my house at mile three, with the intent to turn around after another half-mile and come back home.  As I was passing, I saw the garbage truck down the road.

Damn. We forgot to put the garbage out. Again. We have a bad habit of this. I debated whether or not to stop my run and put the garbage out as I was passing the house, but I decided against it, because I was actually having a pretty good run, and thought I’d be okay. What’s one week of missing the garbage truck?

As I continued down the road, I realized that we had forgotten last week, too, and things were going to be getting pretty serious as far as our garbage goes. When I hit the half-mile point and turned around yo go back home, I started to speed up, because I saw the garbage truck ahead of me. I knew he had to turn down a side street, and I thought maybe I could catch him and ask him if he could hit my house from the other road on the way back.

I started unconsciously going faster, not even realizing it, but I couldn’t catch him before he turned down the side road. When I got to the road, I turned down it, too, and I started to chase him, but he was just too fast. I started calling out, “Hey, hey, Mr. Garbageman!” (Is there a more proper way to refer to your garbageman?)

By the time the guy finally heard me, I was just about right behind him, but I had to stop because I was exhausted from the sprinting. When he turned around and saw me, he jumped and yelled out in surprise! I felt so bad for scaring him. 🙁

I asked him if he could get my garbage on the way back, and even though it was going to be a bit out of his way, he graciously replied that it would be no problem, and they’d take care of it. I was really surprised at how nice and how very accommodating he was. I thanked him, but I don’t think he heard me over the noise of the truck because he had to get going.

Once I got back home, I quickly put the garbage out. But then I started feeling guilty about scaring the garbageman, not to mention causing him a little extra work.  So I decided to thank him for his efforts, and apologize at the same time.

I ran back into the house, and downstairs into the basement, where I grabbed a couple of jars of strawberry jam (figuring there had to be two guys, one to drive, and one to get the garbage). I put them both in the previous day’s Bob Evans bag, and then I put a big note on it with my thanks.

I ran it back out to the curb and put it in front of the garbage can, but then I got panicked that maybe they might not figure it out. So I ran back inside and wrote a little more on the note.

I just wanted to make sure that they didn’t think the jam I work so hard on was garbage! 🙂

I put it back out there and hoped that they would figure it out.

t now

I went back inside and got the kids and myself ready, and by the time I came back out, the garbage was gone, and so was the bag. Hopefully, my note was obvious enough, and the guys are enjoying their strawberry jam right now.

And that was the story of how I scared the garbageman. 😉

I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!