Yay! All the remodeling is complete.

Boo! We’ve had a dumpster out in the front yard since we moved in.

Yay! They came and picked up the dumpster.

Boo! The driver hit the gate on his way out and now the gate doesn’t close.

This dumpster has been a thorn in my side since we arrived in Texas. After three days on the road wearing pretty much the same clothes all three days because I didn’t plan well, traveling with a dog, hearing “I’m Getting Drunk On A Plane” for the 300th time, we finally arrived. We enter the development, and make our way to our new home. As we rounded the curve, there it was. Our new house, our new home, our new yard, our new – wait, what is that? It’s a…it’s a dumpster. Right there, right smack in the middle of the driveway. Visible from the road, visible from every window at the front of the house. Ugh. I thought to myself, “that is really an eyesore, but okay the waste from the remodeling needed to go somewhere. Upon closer inspection, we see that there is a treadmill in the dumpster. “Was that in the house?” JD asks me. Nope – someone just saw a dumpster in the yard and figured they would dump their unwanted treadmill in it. (they must have decided to start hanging their clothes in the closet rather than on the treadmill!) Maybe it was one of the guys working on the house. We wouldn’t care except at that time, there was still some remodel waste yet to go in and, oh yeah – we are being charged for the rental of the dumpster as well as paying for the waste by the pound! Well, okay, nothing we can do about it now.

Next, the gardener shows up. We talk a walk around and point out the things that we want trimmed, removed, etc. “Can I put this stuff in the dumpster?” he asks. Well, we’re paying for it, so of course he can! Off he goes with plans to return on the weekend.

A couple of days later, we’re eating dinner and pup starts barking. It’s not just the “oh, there’s a deer in the yard” bark, it’s a mean sounding “get out of here” bark. We calmed her down and didn’t think too much about it – that is, until the next day.

Someone had come in through the gate and dumped more junk in the dumpster – while we were there! What the heck?! So now we have a treadmill, remodel waste and some new contraption in the dumpster. At this point it’s full. In fact, it’s so full that the stuff in it is actually about a foot above the “do not fill above this line” that is clearly visible on the side of the dumpster and the gardener hadn’t even started yet.

The gardener did come, and loaded even more waste and now the dumpster is overflowing. Oh this is not good. Not good at all. You see, JD is a straight shooter, amazingly honest and it would never occur to him to either dump stuff in someone’s trash without asking, or fill it up past the designated line. I’m not sure how the conversation went, but it was time to have the dumpster, treadmill and all removed.

That brings us to today. As the dumpster was being hauled off, the driver clipped the gate and caused a bit of damage and now it doesn’t close all the way. No, he didn’t stop, and yes, he just drove off. What he didn’t know, was that there was a witness to all this. Yep, honest Abe (aka JD) was watching, yelling at him to stop. (I’m picturing this in my mind and I cant help but giggle. I can just see him yelling and waving his arms knowing that there was no way the driver could see him much less hear him!)

I’m hopeful that karma will come knocking soon. That the person that dumped their treadmill will gain 50 lbs., and their doctor will say. “you should get a treadmill and start walking”. Or that the driver of the truck that hit the gate and didn’t stop got pulled over and was ticketed for having waste piled too high over the “do not fill above this line” mark!

On the plus side, the rep from the waste company came right out to assess the damage (yessiree, that’s a damaged gate, all right) so hopefully it will be fixed sooner rather than later.

The moral to this story? There isn’t one – just put your trash in your own trash can, and don’t fill it over the line!