"Cabin Fever"

Have you been feeling like the walls are closing in around you and that the lid of the box is about to be nailed down?  You have Cabin fever and you need to get out and do something different.  Yeah, I know there really hasn’t been enough snow for most winter sports and it has been too windy and cold for many other things.

Do what my wife and I done. We made a list of things we would like to do and than narrowed it down to things we could do. There was only one thing left on the list that didn’t have a check mark or a line through it, It was Can kicking. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a can any more? We had to go up and down the ally looking in all the trash cans to find a can to kick.

We ran into dogs that told us to stay away, the can belonged to them. Cats were hissing and growling at us at other trash cans. Some trash cans never had a thing in then, it kind of made you wonder about the people they belonged to. Were they so poor that they couldn’t afford food? We had better look into this a little farther. One little old lady that lived all alone, had nothing more than empty bottles in her can and we were staggering before we could get the lid back on tight. Who would have ever thought that she was that way?

But we did find enough cans so we could kick them down the ally, But then some of the neighbor’s came out to find out what all the noise was about. No one said anything, but you could tell they objected. We would kick them to the end of the alley, then turn them around and kick them back to where we started. It was a cold crisp day and the sounds of the cans rolling down the ally clear like a bell. 

In one place, my wife kicked a can and her shoe came off. Over a fence it went, into a back yard. I had to get over that fence and get the shoe before a dog that was there decided to come after me. I made it over the fence and just in the nick of time, While my wife was putting her shoe back on, I stood there talking to the dog, then he started to wag his tail, then he turned and went back to where he was to begin with, but he did  stop about half way and turned to look back at me.

Kicking a can down an ally and back a few times can get tiresome. A person needs a place to stop and rest every now and then. My wife suggested that we get a couple of lawn chairs and sat them somewhere along the course and rest there when we came back from the other end.

About that time, along comes one of the cities trash collection trucks and he runs over our cans and smashes them flat. Have you ever tried to kick a flat can ?  The went on down the alley picking up trash, this is when I noticed our lawn chairs were gone. The only place they could be was on that truck,

I jumped into the car and went after that truck and caught it a few blocks away. I yelled at the driver wanting to know why they loaded my chairs on their truck? He looked at me and said “what” I repeated. Why did you take my chairs, they were not at any trash pick up spot. That was when I recognized the other guy, he went to college with my son a few years back.  We were wondering why his name wasn’t on the graduating list with the rest of the class. Now we know why!  They unloaded my chairs, but they weren’t much good now, being all bent out of shape and beyond repair.

Since we had no cans to kick and no chairs to set in, we found that the walls in the living really weren’t getting that close together and the TV still worked.

So, if you decide to go out and kick cans, you had better start saving them and don’t kick them in the ally, on garbage collection day.

By; Ben R.  ☺

Feb. 24, 2013