Ice, Garbage, & Joy
Last week, Earth decided she wanted some texture.
So it snowed three or four inches, sealed it with a layer of ice, and then dropped the temperature. Since then, it has stayed below freezing, and the sun just ain’t interested in helping.
I wrote about the stillness of it all in a note earlier this week, the way everything here kinda shuts down and waits.
Regardless, I needed to haul the recycling and garbage bins from behind my house, down the alley, and out to the curb. My house sits higher than the alley, which means the alley has an incline. And nothing on our block has been shoveled. It’s a legit ice rink. If you fall (which my partner has), you would just keep falling for days.
Now, now (because I can already hear the northerners), I do own a shovel, but it’s one of those optimistic kinds that only work on fresh, fluffy snow. Just not built for rage-frozen ice fused to the sidewalk. And, of course, in a city forever unprepared for the concept of “winter,” every store has been stripped bare of salt, ice melt, and any tool capable of breaking through the ice.
Still. Garbage waits for no one. During my enforced hibernation, I have been swaddled in a gown-length Snuggie/muumuu (with hoodie). There is no shame in rocking this around the house, which logically means there was also no shame in wearing it outside at 5 a.m. to face what I can only describe as a quest. I even accessorized for survival: old ski gloves, my favorite green wool scarf, and a beanie.
My partner took one look at me and said, “You look like a snowman come to life.” Then followed up with, “Or maybe a Christmas caroler who lost everything.”
I set those comments aside.
I first tried going out to the back gate—the shortest route to the bins—but the gate had been sealed shut by this snow-ice alliance. So instead, I went out front and looked down the alley. That’s when I knew this was impossible. The streetlight revealed a shellacked, gleaming sheet of ice stretching the entire way up. Kinda smug and mocking tbh.
But you can’t be brave without fear, so I stepped onto it anyway. Well, not stepping exactly. More...shuffling? I lowered by body, center of gravity down, moving like a little crab. Immediately, I was slipping n’ sliding past the dark windows of my neighbors’ houses.
By the grace of God (or any god) I made it up the incline, divinely guided from one stranger’s footprint to another’s tire track, latching onto whatever scraps of traction I could use.
Victory!
Except...except the bins, which have two wheels in the back and a flat front, were completely sealed into the ice.
So I started doing a little shimmy to dislodge them. And I can only imagine what this looked like from anyone looking in on the scene. Because we all know that there is always somebody watching. And if they weren’t watching me before, they definitely sprinted to their windows to investigate all the upsetting sounds bugle-ing around the vicinity. The winching & whining. Shrill, metallic shrieks that echoed like a banshee’s piercing scream designed to alert the neighborhood and stun her enemies.
Which could explain what happened next.
Temporarily stunned by freeing the bins from the ice, I made the worst decision of this entire operation: I got in front of the bin to start our descent.
Now, this is where I believe in guardian angels. Mine apparently slapped a glass bell near my head (ding ding!) and shoulder-tapped me just in time. Because it would have seemed strange for my life to end by being mowed down by my own recycling. I repositioned myself behind the bin about a quarter of the way down, right before things got too fast.
Okay. Alright. I get it: steering on ice, it turns out, is more of a suggestion than a skill. But I refused to be a helpless pawn in all of this. I got low again, crouching with the bin, both of us on two points of contact (me on feet, it on wheels), scooching down the incline.
And then we were off!
We hurtled down the alley together. Me clutching the handle with one hand, the other skidding along the ice, the bin shrieking like some cursed object come to life.
We picked up speed. And we were unstoppable. A makeshift, runaway Mack truck possessed by a chaos spell.
All I could do was hold on for dear life and laugh. The kind of laughter that surprises you by existing at all and leans up against hysteria.
Full, unadulterated glee.
Somehow, we made it to the bottom unscathed. No injuries, no dignity left behind that I hadn’t already willingly abandoned. And the best part?
I got to do it twice.
Once for recycling.
Once for trash.
I don’t know when or how my inner child decides to show up. Apparently, sometimes it’s at 5 a.m., dressed like a sentient holiday decoration, riding a garbage bin down an ice rink of an alley.
But when he does, I try not to argue.
He usually knows what he’s doing (and I hope I never forget that).
