Spitting mad...

A little while ago, I noticed a garbage can on the verge of overflowing by one of the pumps, so I grabbed a fresh bag and during a rare customer-free moment, sallied forth bravely to take care of it. I pulled off the lid, grabbed a double handful of bag, gave it a businesslike lift…and nothing happened.

The thing weighed a ton.

Upon investigation, I realized that some clever soul had taken their own non-subtle white garbage bag (chock-full of whatever) and rammed it into our already full enough thank-you-very-much, garbage bag. This is really freakin’ annoying, to tell you the truth. Anyway, I decided to remove the intruder first, reasoning that this would enable me to get our bag out without my needing back surgery or a Medflight or something.

So, Garbage Can – Take Two. I reached in, grabbed the white bag, gave a businesslike lift and as it cooperatively popped loose from the can to about the level of my chest, it exploded.

I’m not saying that the bottom dropped out of it. I’m saying it exploded. Because it exploded.

Plastic bags rip. I know this already from bitter experience. Too many times, I have felt the dreaded “brown goo” seeping through my shoes from a leaking garbage bag, no matter how carefully I tried to hold it at arm’s length while waddling at breakneck toward the dumpster. And Heaven forbid that I wear sandals. Really, the brown goo is everything noxious you can imagine, all condensed and pureed. Brown goo on bare skin would probably give me leprosy at the very least.

But at least I know to expect brown goo. And this wasn’t it.

Never before have I seen this level of catastrophic disintegration. And never before, in the line of duty, have I found myself liberally splattered with…

 

 

 

Rotten watermelon.

In a vague way, I’d be quite interested to find out if the gasses from watermelon decay can interact with the chemical compounds in plastic.

 

In a more immediate way, I’d really like a shower.

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