Ashley Giles

[with translations for American readers]

I have been tracking with interest of late the to-ings and fro-ings [behavior] of our humble wheelie bin [garbage can]. Being something of a modest [Unamerican] consumer of disposable items such as food containers and other unneccesary packaging, there simply hasn't been that much rubbish [trash] to put in it. Hugo is seemingly equally frugal [you guys Australian?] Thus, until last week, it had been several weeks since either of us remembered to actually put the bin [garbage can] out on the street for collection. It just wasn't full.

(Before any horrified readers write in to express their disgust, the accumulated refuse didn't smell enough to frighten my as I walked past the bins [garbage cans] in the mornings, and so I believe the chances of a major public health calamity as a result of this benevolent neglect were minimal.)

Anyway, fast forward to last Friday, and the bin [garbace can] is sitting proudly on the pavement [sidewalk], as I head off to work. This could have been the work of Hugo, or it could have been the act of our next-door neighbours [neighbors], who probably regard us as slightly incompetent/irresponsible individuals [single young men]. It is still standing proudly there on Friday evening, as I hurtle back home on my bike. And on Saturday. And on Sunday.

(The keen reader may have noticed at this point that I noticed that 'we' had left the bin [garbage can] out on the street for several days without doing anything about it. In reply, I merely point out that it is one thing to observe that something is a bad idea - e.g. going to war in Iraq [saving the western world from Al Qaeda] - and another thing entirely to do anything at all about it.)

Monday comes and with it another opportunity to haul my desperately unfit arse [ass] up the three mile gentle uphill incline to work. Locking the door to the house, I noted that the bin [garbage can] had not made it back to its trusty home under the outside stairs. Mounting my bike outside the visitor exclusion device [gate] I notice that the bin was no longer there. This caused some mild concern (a mental note was penned to ask Hugo about it). As it did on Tuesday and Wednesday when there was still no sign of it, and I had still done nothing.

And now, on Thursday evening, I return home from a strenuous day's driving around Bodega Bay eating fish and chips [fries], to find the bin [garbage can] back in its place on the pavement [sidewalk]! For three days I had been passively worrying about its whereabouts, but the situation had righted itself, weeble-like, without any output from me. And so I find myself now wondering where our dear bin [garbage can] has been (away on a city break? did someone borrow it? did someone escort it back home?) and what the hell is in it (body parts? toxic waste? someone else's rubbish [trash]?).

Of course, if I really was that curious, I might have looked by now.

There's a moral to this tale somewhere in there.