I am on call this weekend which means I really can't leave the house because you just never know when the phone might ring. So, I decided to make the most of it and be industrious. Now, on the very top of my Honey Do List (for a few months... or maybe a few years) has been cleaning out the garage.
No time like the present, right?
So, I'm standing in the middle of the garage, turning a circle, looking for my first project when I spy a stack of rock salt three bags high sitting under a layer of dust in the corner. Last winter's snow storms were not the caliber of the years prior so when we stockpiled in anticipation of things not to come what we ended up with was more useless debris, the likes of which is making our two car garage a one car garage, and this seemed like as good a place to start as any.
So, I headed over to the corner with an industrial-sized, wheeled garbage can in tow and started planning my attack. What I didn't know at this point was that, apparently, a strange thing happens to rock salt over the course of a summer when it is allowed to sit and bake in a garage. It consolidates, you see, and in doing so it puts on about a hundred pounds.
I know this now.
I did not, however, know this when I knelt with great confidence to lift a bag and begin my business.
So, with a fair amount of ignorance and zeal, I bent at the waist, wrapped my arms around the corners of the top bag, and proceeded full-force into a hoist-and-grunt maneuver which resulted in no appreciable change in the position of the bag, but much noise from the likes of me. What I did accomplish was to quite effectively wrench my back and, although I could not confirm it, rearrange my innards to the point that I did feel compelled to look behind me to be sure that my uterus was not lying on the garage floor.
Much to my surprise and relief it was not.
Now, having been stunned and then immensely relieved all in a matter of seconds, I stood, albeit with a more bent posture, and eyed the bag with a new sense of respect.
Suffice to say it was on.
I regrouped and began to kick and shove and pry until finally I was able to push the bag off its resting place and far enough out of the corner of the garage that I could get an arm under the largest part of it. I gathered my resolve and this time I lifted with the most concentrated oomph that I could muster and swung my load in the general direction of the waiting can. Unfortunately, the momentum catapulted me and the leading bag of salt more forcefully than expected and I nearly launched myself right into the garbage can behind it. But, that was not exactly how things played out.
The bag went full force into the can, hit the opposite side with a thud and sent the whole thing flying forward, nearly taking the top layer of skin off my wrist in the process.
In an instant it was over and the garbage can was left lying on the floor in the middle of the garage. The offending bag of rock salt was lying on the floor in front of it (amidst some other stinky stuff)... and the other two untouched bags of rock salt sat sneering at me from the corner.
Now, I am no quitter, but I am a reasonable woman and I did what any reasonable woman would do at this point. I shuffled (hands on knees) at a ninety degree angle to the steps that connect our kitchen to the garage, assumed the stance of a Sumo wrestler (it was the best I could do), got myself up the three steps and into our kitchen, shut the door behind me (with my back), retrieved a frosty pop from the fridge (remember I am on call, folks), and proceeded through the kitchen and into the living room (alternating between my Sumo wrestler stance and one that more resembled the hunchback of Notre Dame) where I plopped awkwardly down on the couch to nurse my wounds.
Of course the remote control would be on the other side of the living room.
Of course it would.
But my laptop is over here with me, so at least I can still blog.
Damn it.
(P.S. Part 2 will be about how Joanne comes home tonight and runs over the garbage can. I meant well, folks. I really did.)
