Monday=Trash

This morning my roommate left for school. Shortly after she walked out, she walked back in and told me to go look in the street. Our trash can had blown over during the night, some animal (probably one of our neighbor's 800 cats) had chewed the bags, and our trash was strewn all over the road.

Fabulous. Happy Monday. Welcome home roommate--have a good first day back at school.

My first instinct was to think "if I had a husband he could pick up the trash," but since I'm not allowed to have thoughts like that anymore, my roommate and I knelt down and started picking up our very wet trash. Thanks rain!

Now, I was getting ready to go to a student council advisor workshop, so I didn't need to leave my house as early as I usually do. So, I was still half in pajamas. Kneeling in my wet trash. In pajama pants that are blue with sheep all over them. (Whenever I talk about the sheep pants, I feel the need to mention that they are from J. Crew--as if that somehow legitimizes having sheep on your pants.)

About two months ago, someone moved into the house diagonal from ours. Because we are wonderful neighbors, we had not met this person yet. Our new neighbor came running over and started picking up our trash.

Hello new neighbor--very nice, unmarried (I totally ring checked, plus there's only one car), male neighbor. These are my sheep pants. All the sheep and I are very pleased to meet you. Baa. At least I had my hair and make-up done.

I couldn't help but think that if we fell in love this would be a fabulous meet cute (a term I know from watching The Holiday.) Cut to a shot of us sitting on a sofa a la When Harry Met Sally.

Me: We met when he came to help my roommate and I pick up trash--
Him: The wind had blown the trash can over.
Me: Yeah, and it had rained, so the trash was wet. The bags had opened up--trash was everywhere.
Him: It was everywhere. She was kneeling down picking up trash in these crazy-looking pants.
Me: They had sheep on them--they were pajamas.
Him: She looked really cute, so I walked over to help.
Me: Even though our hands were covered with trash, we shook hands. He had kind eyes.
[We sit for a moment, smiling and looking into each other's eyes.]
Him: It stormed on our wedding day.
Me: I always worried that it would rain on my wedding day. But I was really glad it did. It was windy--
Him: Really windy--
Me: And it reminded me of when we first met.

So here I am, picking up soggy trash with my cute new neighbor and all I can think is, "Seriously, I'm in sheep pants, and I'm really glad I've been cooking for myself. Otherwise, my trash would be a bunch of Lean Cuisine boxes, which would make me look like I've given up, but now I look fantastic because my trash is made up of real food. Also, I'm glad we picked up the tampon box before he walked over.

We finished picking up our trash. My roommate went to school, and I went inside to put on real pants. This, I thought, is some way to start a week.