I Lied to the Garbage Man

One year after Christmas, I decided I didn't want to have extra garbage bags outside in the snow for an extra week (because they wouldn't fit in the can), so when I heard the garbage truck, I hurried out to get rid of our extra garbage.

I was shaking in the cold waiting for the truck to come to our stop. I have to admit, too, that the closer it got, the more intimidating the noisy truck was. (Up close, those things are HUGE.)

When the Garbage Man finished at my neighbor and barreled his way to our stop, he put his head out of the window and yelled (over the truck noise), "Whenyagitriddyasak wateferda candycumdowndinputemindycan!"

I was so scared and it was so noisy and I was trembling outta fear or cold or something that I said, "OKAY!" and when the can came down, I hoisted a sack up into the truck.

The Garbage Man looked back at me and yelled louder, "Whenyagitriddyasak wateferda candycumdown dinputemindycan!"

"OKAY!" I yelled back, thinking, hey, we got something going here, the Garbage Man and I (I always made friends easily, so this was natural). And I threw another bag up.

Just then, the Garbage Man threw open his door, looked down at me in anger (and was kinda frothing at the mouth with his beard and all) and screamed, "I SAID, DON'T throw the sack up there! WAIT for the garbage to be dumped out and then PUT IT in the CAN!! It took me TWO HOURS last week to get a bag out from behind the BLADE! DON'T THROW your bag up there. PUT IT IN THE CAN!!"

I was SCARED to death. This man was MAD and he knew where I lived and I had to protect my family, but I knew he could turn his truck RIGHT toward my house and practically LIFT the WHOLE thing in his truck, so my hand snapped to my ear, my heart was racing, I was breathing hard, gave a panicked look at the angry, frothing Garbage Man and with a pleading voice (this is the part I'm not really proud of) I yelled like I was deaf, "I COULDN'T HEAR YOU! I COULDN'T HEAR YOU!!"

His entire faced IMMEDIATELY melted into a soft look and he hollered, "Oh, that's OKAY. You're OKAY. You're OKAY," and closed his door and drove off.

I couldn't believe it. It worked, but as I walked up my driveway, I thought, "I just LIED to the Garbage Man." I just LIED to him. Why did I DO that??

My family was still sleeping, and when I crawled back into bed, my wife woke and asked what was the matter. When I told her, she said, "You what? You LIED to the Garbage Man? Why in the WORLD would you LIE to the garbage man?"

I've never lived it down, but I AM thankful for the two acting classes I took. They saved my life.