23 July 2008

Beanz Meanz ...

9:00 am

I have a bad feeling about this.

Today is Bin Day. Before I put our bin out on the kerb for collection, I decided to empty one of our bean bags into it so I could wash the cover and re-fill it with new beans. This is half of my greater project to re-fill both bags which have been Weed-On & Dried and Weed-On & Dried numerous times. (Yes, you are all welcome to come and visit anytime. I know you want to.)

As I held the rapidly deflating bean bag high over my head and watched trillions of beans pouring out into the garbage bin, I realised that the volume of beans was certainly going to be greater than the available space. What to do?

Well, certainly not the sensible thing, which would have been to stop the flow of beans and finish the job next week. Oh no of course not.

I went for it. Surely, with a bit of settling of the contents, it would all fit?



Not completely, it turns out.

It hasn't settled quite enough yet and there's now nothing I can do about the horror that is about to unfold in our street. I can't get the excess out into bags without the same amount of mess that the garbage truck will soon be making.

The giant bin liner doesn't meet at the top so I can't tie it up and contain the beans. I had to balance the sides of the flimsy plastic liner on top of the fluffy mass of spilling beans and gently hold the bin lid down while I gingerly wheeled the whole thing to the kerb.

It sits there now surrounded by a light snowfall of beans, waiting for the council garbage truck to roughly grab it, hurl it high into the air, give it a brutal shake and violently dump it back down on the ground.

Something tells me that in a few hours, there will be snowdrifts you could ski on.

Incidentally, which is more embarrassing?
Risking your neighbours seeing the snowdrift of beanbag beans all over the street outside your home?
Risking your neighbours seeing you frantically vacuuming the road?
pollcode.com free polls

11:00 am

Quite a let-down from a blogging perspective, but a huge success from an environmental one. The mess my beanbag-beans-in-the-bin disaster made was no more than the mess I'd already made, wheeling the bin out to the kerb.

I don't know how the garbage truck managed not to spill 80% of the beans out onto the road, but it seems I have been spared the humiliation of vacuuming the street.

11 comments:

Adelaine said...

Haha! Leave it to the professionals! It may not be the most glorious job, but they do it well!

Now if it were our garbage man, we would be getting a nastygram about it :) We did once because a trash bag of scooped kitty litter busted - yuckk!

Aunt Debbi/kurts mom said...

I didn't get it for a minute and wanted you to compost the beans. Glad that is cleared up.

We had a bean bag explode in baby and middle monkey's room one time. Apparently, a child cannot dive into one from the top bunk of a bunk bed, who knew. It was an enviornmental disaster and I am glad it is over.

Swift Jan said...

PHEW!! I have visions of you vacuuming the street!!! LOL

Givinya De Elba said...

Adelaine - I was worried about a nastygram! Glad we're probably not going to get one. I really love the name Adelaine. The "other person" in your family with a name quite similar has a love name too though! Both are so pretty.

Aunt Debbi - Your environmental disaster sounds like a nightmare. LOL at the thought of a child diving into a bean bag from the top bunk and disappearing into a white cloud though.

Becky - I too am relieved!

Putting the FUN in DysFUNctional said...

I was going to suggest that you stick it in front of the neighbor's curb and run away.
Glad it worked out for you though!

Givinya De Elba said...

Why do I never think of the most obvious solution?

Allegro ma non troppo said...

Did Aunt Debbi just call one of her kids the "middle monkey"?

Jen said...

Vacuuming the street, now that is something that I would like to see. To bad, those garbage men must be magic.

Anonymous said...

I'd definitely go with the bin swap with a neighbour, because I don't think I could vacuum the road if necessary. Jen.

miri68 said...

Too funny! I have attempted this also but with less luck, the garbage men did dump about 50% of my earnestly scooped beans! I just swept it over to the neighbors. LOL!

Adelaine said...

I kid you not - there are people in this town who would vacuum the road and not because of some bean spillage. But just to make their yard look nicer. It's crazy!

Awww...thanks about the name comment :) I didn't realize until I broke out a baby name book the other day that the "other person's" name is actually a derivative of Adelaine!