When a household contains enough people to field a complete 5-on-5 basketball game, you have enough worker bees to divide and conquer chores. And that’s what my parents did for us, their 7 children. Some of the chores were on a regular rotation – like cleaning bathrooms and washing dishes in the kitchen[i] – while other chores had specific owners.
For as long as I can remember, taking out the trash out every Monday and Thursday night was my responsibility, and mine alone.
You’re probably thinking that I got off the hook pretty easy. I mean, out of all the household chores, surely trash duty couldn’t be too bad, right? But if you consider that there were 7 kids (5 of them girls), 2 parents, and 1 (prune-loving) World War II veteran living under the same roof, you can imagine that the trash accumulated in between collection days was 1) monumental in volume and 2) pretty gross. Plus, all of this went into large trash buckets that a scrawny 9 year old me was supposed to drag across our lawn to the street corner, which was difficult since I didn’t hit my growth spurt til I was… 22 maybe? Regardless, the trash cans dwarfed me, and it was all-too-common that a one would topple sideways during the journey across the yard, spilling its foul contents onto our “yard,” which comprised a plot of sandy dirt, interrupted sporadically by patches of weeds. And it should go without saying that collecting the trash a second time, this time in the darkness of our front yard, never helped foster the cheerful attitude with which my parents had always hoped I would execute my chores. But I digress.
While everyone had a vested interest in seeing the trash cans make it to the street corner, Grandpa seemed to care the most. And fair enough, if you survived World War II, you deserve to live in a house where the “goddamn trash” gets taken out to the street on the appropriate nights of the week. No arguments there. But it was apparently SO important to him that I received frequent threats to have the trash dumped in my bed if it didn’t make it out to the street before the garbage men came by in the morning.[ii]
Besides threatening to dump the trash in my bed, Grandpa was also known to shuffle to / from the bathroom in the middle of the night wearing only his ancient, threadbare underwear, which seemed to imbibe Grandpa’s tenacity and selfsame refusal to give up or quit. But again, if you survived World War II, you’ve earned the right to stumble around your home in nothing but your ancient, threadbare underwear. That’s your prerogative. Although sometimes it’s a shock to your half-awake grandkids to see your figure lumber through the dark hallway towards the bathroom.
What’s funny is that during these late night trips to the bathroom, Grandpa would often realize that I had forgotten the trash, that I had neglected my one and only duty. This is where Grandpa must have made several decisions very quickly. First, he wasn’t going to waste time dumping the trash in my bed, as previously advertised, but would rather take it out to the street himself. And second, he could do it quicker and unencumbered if he didn’t take the time to get dressed first, other than donning his stereotypical old person shoes (the ones with Velcro). And so that’s what he would do: he would drag the trash can(s) out to the street corner for me. Wearing just his ancient, threadbare underwear and his Velcro’s. In the middle of the night. All the time. (I was a forgetful 9 year old.)
What I never realized until just a few years ago is that my forgetfulness on trash night could have had unintended consequences, not for me, but for my sister.
The story
goes that one of my sisters was out late with a boy (either sneaked out to see
him, or was just out past curfew) on just such a fateful night. Apparently, they were still
in our family’s driveway when Grandpa surprised them (and half of the
neighborhood), emerging from the house in his iconic underwear and
Velcro’s, and began dragging the trash down the driveway towards the street. And I can totally imagine exactly how this
went down:
The floodlight shown down onto the patio, catching Grandpa’s more
prominent features (i.e. his eyebrows), casting some extra ominous shadows
across his face. The same light must
have also made his ancient, threadbare underwear and pale thighs glow
supernaturally – a terrifying site for anyone, let alone a couple of kids out
past curfew. My sister and that boy had
to be petrified when they saw my grandfather come out of the house, frozen with
horror as Grandpa dragged the trash cans towards them. She says that Grandpa didn’t freak out, he
didn’t yell at them, and to the best of my knowledge the occurrence was never
even mentioned to my parents. He merely
acknowledged their presence with a stern grunt of disapproval and continued
marching his trash cans to the street corner.
When the task was complete, grandpa disappeared back into the house without
saying a word to anyone.
My sister
claims that was the last time she ever sneaked out of the house, and I would be
not at all surprised if the experience was sufficiently traumatizing to
accomplish exactly that.
But the real reason I love this story is that it serves as tangible proof of what Grandpa did FOR me and did not do TO me. Each year represented 100+ trash nights, and I owned the chore for 5+ years while Grandpa remained with us. It’s probably a conservative estimate to say that I missed 1/4 of those nights, but Grandpa never once made good on his threat to dump the forgotten trash in my bed, and instead always took it upon himself to take drag the buckets out to the street in my place when I had forgotten to do my part. It was exactly the kind of thing that someone like Grandpa should never HAVE to do, and yet it was exactly the kind of thing he DID do. Week in and week out. Whenever it was needed. Which was all the time.
Thanks again, Grandpa.
[i]
When asked why our family didn’t own a dishwasher, my dad would often reply
(only half joking): “Buy a dishwasher?
Why would I buy a dishwasher when I already have 7 of them??” Still makes me laugh, Dad.
[ii] I made the mistake of sharing that
experience in class one time when the teacher asked for an example of “when
someone has yelled at or threatened you?”
Judging by the look of shock and horror on Ms. Roth’s face, I think my
parents had to do some explaining on that one…
