Thank God for Garbage!

I know, I know. Far too many posts here have been dedicated to my garbage and recycling. We've discussed that already. But today, I have a whole new attitude toward garbage. Today I am CELEBRATING GARBAGE!

You see, this morning when I went out to haul my garbage to the curb like I do every Monday morning, I saw something unusual.

My neighbor was waiting patiently to cross the four-lane road in front of my house.

He's three.

He was on his Big Wheel.

In his underwear.

He was very agreeable when I suggested that we needed to head back to his house, and obligingly scooted his Big Wheel alongside me. When I asked where he'd been headed, he said he was just going to work. While I knocked and rang bells and tried to wake up his parents, my daughter had a talk with him about how cars can hurt you.

Now, I know that about a thousand of you are shaking your heads in disgust at his parents right now, because that's what we have to do. The only way we can pretend that this terrifying stuff can't happen to us is by finding something to distinguish us from those parents.

This kid has fantastic parents. I don't know them well, but I see them in the yard with their kids all the time. They actively play with them, and they stick close to them. And they've obviously taught him well, because he was WAITING HIS TURN to cross the street. But, like all of us, they occasionally have to sleep. And early this morning while they were sleeping, we all learned that their three year old has figured out how to open the patio door.

We also learned something great about human nature, because inn the space of a minute or so, the time it took me to get from my porch to the corner, another woman stopped her van and got out to ask him where his mother was and yet another passerby called the Sheriff, who arrived within minutes.

All is well.

But I think it's going to be a long time before I complain about having to take my garbage out.