Daring Caper, Part Deux: Mission Thwarted

As you recall, Matt and I have a garbage crisis on our hands, and I was planning to sneak our trash into the neighbor's can for pickup today. Last night Matt and I watched Be Kind, Rewind on pay-per-view (funny and kind of French but not unmissable). Then, about 12:30 am, I told Matt it was time for the caper. I went outside to see if Mindy had put her can by the street. She had not. I waved to Matt, standing in the doorway, and jogged up the hill out of our cul-de-sac to see if any other Friday-garbage people had put their cans out. Miss Terry, around the corner, had hers out. I opened the lid, triggering her motion-detecting floodlights, and peered into the murky depths. Hosannah, her can was nearly empty! One bag lay on the bottom.

I skipped down the hill to tell Matt that it was game on, baby. I thought we could either wheel our can out into the street and ferry the trash by hand, or, I wasn't against temporarily taking her can for a ride, then pulling it back into place with some of our trash in it. I wasn't going to fill hers up, of course, in case she had some last-minute bags in the morning. But something about the whole scheme had crossed over out of Matt's comfort zone. Maybe the distance between our two houses? He announced that he was going to put some of our trash in the back of his car and throw it in the dumpster at his office today. I didn't really see how this was ethically any different from using space in a neighbor's can. But I tend to use Matt's gut instincts as my moral compass, so I was like, whatever. Matt said he just didn't want to get up to such hijinks in the neighborhood. He acknowledged the breathless boldness of my caper, but said we were doing it his way. And nobody on this earth has ever gotten Matt to do something when he was opposed to it. I did whine that my plan was awesome and that Miss Terry's nearly empty can was a sign from God. Nothing doin'.

So I think he only took a couple of bags, so he'll be doing this on Monday too. Lord knows how we'll make it through the weekend.