Sweat the Small Stuff - Part Two

This is a little too good to be true. But it is true. And remember not all small things are worth sweating.

But this one is.

Ready?

Pay your bills on time!

Small but powerful. And worth sweating.

Here is the deal.

I came home Tuesday and Mrs. Swaim announces rather casually, “Our trash can is missing.”

“Really? Dang, that’s weird.”

I immediately thought of one of my neighbors who can’t be trusted around other people’s garbage cans. I think he must suffer from garbage can envy. You know how those big gray cans come in three sizes? A few years ago I had decided to downsize my gigantic can for a more petit, sportier, less intrusive model. When the man arrived at our house to haul the big gray monstrosity away, and replace it with my new sleek sports car model, he brought a brand new one. No gunk, no smell, no unidentifiable stuff. Clear, clean, strong plastic just waiting to be handled roughly by the garbage man and abused by the Swaim family. Abused in a loving sort of way because I am grateful for a place to put our leftovers when they have expired in the fridge. I am grateful for a society which places a high regard for public health by cleanly, efficiently, and regularly disposing of our refuse. I really am. I’m sure my admiration for this basic service is shared by most of you. But my new sleek trash can went missing just a few days after I got it. Seriously. Certainly not of its own accord. Just gone. And I noticed one of my neighbors had what looked like a carbon copy of my new can in his driveway. Now I know trash cans are typically identical gray with big black wheels, but did my neighbor really order a new small one the same day I did. I don’t think so. Last I checked, they don’t put microchips in garbage cans, so I can’t prove anything, but I swear this guy made off with my new, sweet, clean, mini dumpster on wheels. Like I said this happened a few years ago and I sort of forgot about it. And I guess we had gone back to the large sized can in the meantime.

Until Tuesday.

I tried to give my neighbor the benefit of the doubt, but it does seem like a classic case of garbage can envy.

It just seemed rather curious that someone would have made off with our stinky old gigantic can. It just didn’t make sense.

No matter…

“Who would do something like this?”, I asked smirkingly.

“Did you pay the trash bill?”,  Mrs. Swaim asked.

“I thought we had that setup on auto-pay.”

Think again!

Guess what? OUR GARBAGE CAN WAS REPOSSESSED BY THE CITY!

You read that right. Repoed!

We live in a subdivision with three wells producing our own tasty supply of water, so we pay our water bill to the sub. This leaves sewer and trash as possible leverages for deadbeats like me. I can tell you I am really thankful they did not cut off my sewer service! The repossessing of the ubiquitous gray can was enough to get me into action. We paid our bill (and really do have auto-pay setup this time) and they delivered a brand-new SMALL gray can just this morning. Boy, did I learn a lesson about paying attention to small things.

Sweat the small stuff, like paying your bills on time, or watch out for the trash can repo man, I’m sure he looks like Oscar the Grouch.

Cheers,

ks