The Trash Can looks so innocent sitting by the side of the road.  It is a demon that knocked me down and captured me under its weight!

We have all seen the ad on TV with the older woman laying on the floor saying: “Help me, I can’t get up”. She buys a necklace with a button she can press and 911 is called.

That is how I felt yesterday.  I try to always take the trash and recycling up to the road as I am retired and my spouse is still working.  It is uphill and not always easy as sometimes our trash can feels like it must weight two or three hundred pounds.  Yesterday I realized it did weigh that much.

I was on my way to run some errands, so put on cute flats with my jeans.  The problem realized later is that they have slippery soles, and now I feel they really have slippery souls.

All was going well pulling the trash toward the street, till I stepped on the concrete driveway and as I pulled the trashcan forward, my cute flats slipped on the concrete and I fell backward.  It would have been fine, if the trash can had not fallen right on top of me.  I was literally trapped under the trash can and at that point in time I realized it must weigh a couple of hundred pounds as there was NO way I could lift it off on my sprawled  body.  The lid humiliatingly flapped open in my face and three bags of trash bounded down to cover the part of me not covered by the can itself.  To add insult to injury, one of them was full of freshly removed cat litter.

So I lay there for a couple of minutes assessing the situation.  I had no broken bones, although my elbow did not feel happy from it’s jarring contact with the pavement; but I was stuck.  My cell phone was in the house, so I could not call for help.  I can laugh at the situation now, but at that moment I was afraid my husband might come home several hours later and I might still be laying in the driveway pinned down by trash.

I figured I had to make the trashcan a little lighter, so I could get out from under it and luckily we throw out trash in plastic bags, so I pull three or four out and squished on leg at a time out the sides.   I now have lovely bruises on both of my inner legs from this endeavor, but I was trashcan free.

Next I realized I had to make the trashcan upright again, so I could continue dragging it up to the street.  By now there is trash all over the driveway and a trashcan so heavy still that I could not lift it.  I took out several more bags of trash, got a bungie cord to hold the top closed and finally got it to standing position.  By then I did not like that trashcan so much.  I reloaded the enemy, changed my shoes to ones with a grippier sole and pushed it successfully to the street.

Moral of this story: Trash is the enemy!