Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.When planning breakfast do not go via the town dump By J. G. Fabiano There are certain rules in life one has to follow. Some are obvious while others are not. For example; the color red always means stop and the color green means it is okay to go. Yellow was supposed to mean caution but now means accelerate. All holidays are marked by either a gift or a card. (Ignoring this rule will put you behind the eight ball for the rest of your life). Garbage is taken out at least once a week and, in the days of recycle, one never puts Styrofoam in the recycle bin. These are rules that are generally accepted and obeyed. However, there are some that are not so obvious and I came across one of these the other day after I cleared some brush from the corner of my lot. I had also picked up a bunch of dead plants and bagged all my lawn clippings so I had built a mountain of yard debris that could have been called Mount Fabiano. I also had to throw out an old and beat-up lawnmower. I did not break any intrinsic law by doing any of these things, in fact, I followed the regulations of Society to a tee by taking all of my refuse to the dump. The rule I overlooked was the rule that states one should never take one's wife to the dump. It took me the entire morning to move the mountain from my yard and into the back of my truck. Digging deep into the pile I found a lost concrete bench I had broken when I accidentally ran into it during my maiden voyage on a ride-on mower. Instead of taking it to the dump I decided to keep it and repair it at some point. I discovered something else during my dig: yellow jackets love building their homes in a pile of rotting organic material, especially on a concrete bench that makes for a firm foundation. I escaped into my garage with only a few minor stings closed the door behind me and watched through the window as the suddenly homeless yellow jackets swarmed through the neighborhood. I watched my neighbors grab their kids and run inside their homes while shooting dirty looks in my direction. A couple of hours later I thought it was safe to go back outside and finish cleaning up the corner of my yard. After I had peeled off the last couple of years' debris I saw there was no grass left underneath, just deep rich dirt. I wondered why I bothered to buy tons of garden soil over the past few years to plant my annuals when all the time I had an abundant source sitting in the corner of my yard. My truck was now buried under Mount Fabiano, which I had crowned with my dead old lawnmower. I did not stop there, I mowed my lawn and deposited the new grass cuttings on top of the pile so that it looked like I was transporting a small island. I was just about to drive to the town dump when my neighbor came around to ask what I was doing. As we spoke I noticed he kept rubbing the back of his neck and I wondered if it had anything to do with the yellow jackets. I told him I was headed for the dump and he informed me he didn't think this would be possible. When I asked him why he said the dump was only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays and this was a Thursday. I have been living in this town for almost three decades and I had no idea when our dump was open. I would have to wait two days before I could be rid of my load. Since I had nowhere to go I did not think this a problem. I backed my truck into the garage where it would be safe until Saturday. The next morning, when I had to go from the house to the garage, I almost gagged. The garage no longer had anything associated with air left in it. The dense smell of rotting organic material filled the garage so thickly I was sure I could see it. Not wanting my wife to suffer through the same discovery I quickly opened the main garage door and all the windows, hoping it would be a cool and breezy day: It wasn't. Holding my breath I drove the truck out of the garage. As we emerged into the daylight and the stench erupted into the open I think I saw a couple of birds drop from the sky. I did not put my truck back in the garage that night because I knew nobody would go near it. Saturday morning finally arrived. I told my wife I was heading to the dump and she asked if she could join me. After the dump we could go out and get some breakfast, she said. This seemed like a great idea so off to the dump we went, the air conditioner on high so none of the smell of the payload in the back of the truck could penetrate the cab. Since my truck was overloaded I could only drive 25 miles per hour or risk leaving half of Mount Fabiano on the road behind me. As the road to the dump is busy I knew there would be many irate people behind me. This did not bother me at all. I just thought of all the times I had been trapped behind an overloaded pick-up truck driven by an old Mainer in a dirty old baseball cap. At last I knew I belonged to the town in which I lived. He finally made the turn to the dump at which time I noticed the car behind me had its windshield wipers on even though it wasn't raining. I think the driver waved to me but I could be mistaken. The dump was very well organized. It had places to put certain-sized shrubs, concrete blocks, old metal appliances and a giant mound of grass cuttings. When I arrived I saw a large front end loader turning over the grass cuttings that were piled at the end of the dump. Since the grass cuttings were on top of the pile in my truck I drove over to where I assumed I was supposed to dump it. I backed my truck into the pile and opened the door. I have to say that the smell in my garage the other day had nothing on the smell of the dump on a hot summer day. Compared to the dump I could have bottled the smell from my old truck and sold it as deodorant. It was then I noticed my wife. Her eyes were glassy and all the blood seemed to have drained from her face. She had a handkerchief clamped tightly to her nose and mouth and I figured I better be quick or she would suffocate because she clearly had no intention of breathing any of the air at the dump. It was then that the driver of the front end loader came close to us, cracked open his cab window and called out: "Gets your attention, doesn't it?" I shut the door of the truck, hoping the air conditioner would filter some of the stink out the air that leached in from the outside. My wife told me later it did not. I climbed into the bed of the truck and realized that the organic debris I had loaded in there a couple of days ago had begun to ferment. The stench that gusted out of the hot and slimy mess is something our military needs to know about. Instead of A-bombs and chemical weapons we could just bomb an enemy country with big stink bombs and they'd surrender in a minute. From the corner of my eye I thought I saw the driver of the front-end loader laughing. After unloading the fermenting grass cuttings I drove over to the pile of small brush. That smell wasn't as bad but it was surrounded by a moat of water and mud as if it dared anyone to drive near it. I again jumped out of the cab and closed the door as quickly as I could. My wife was quiet to the point where I wondered if she was still conscious. When I hit the ground I sank into the mud up to my ankles. Unfortunately I had not thought to wear boots to the dump. I was wearing sandals and my feet were buried in dump mud. In a moment my future flashed in front of me and I saw myself as a statue of an asphyxiated old man welcoming all those who dared visit. I pulled my feet out of the muck, leaving both sandals behind. I did not dare retrieve them because that would have meant plunging my hands into the dump mud. So, I left them there, convinced they would already be in the process of dissolving. It took me only seconds to unload the brush cuttings. I then asked the man in the front-end loader where I should deposit my dead lawn mower. He told me to put them next to the others because he was going to build a display. I have to admit, I thought it was pretty funny and when I looked at my wife to see how she was enjoying herself I saw that she was slumped in her seat with her head tilted back, her handkerchief still clasped to her face, her eyes staring blankly upward. In all our years of marriage it was the first time I had known my wife to be speechless. I guess she had decided she was going to live off what air she had in her lungs until we were out of the dump and by now she was getting pretty low. Once we were clear of the dump, I lowered the windows and put the air conditioner on high to blast any remaining odors out of the cab. "Okay," I said, trying to sound cheerful. "Where are we going for breakfast?" My wife rolled to one side, stuck her head out the window and made a series of gagging sounds. After we got home I spent the rest of the day hosing down the truck and my wife spent the rest of the day in the shower. Of all the rules I had seen at the dump, I realized there was one missing: 'Not a good place to bring your wife.'
The End.
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