On the Trash

11:30pm Friday. After a fun evening with friends at a super hipster bar, I packed and tried to remember all the things I needed to do before flying out at 6am. Mark had already flown to CA because he had a business trip out there, so I was in charge of closing up the Medill before our 8 days in California. So of course, I did the dishes, straightened up the apartment and made sure all the windows were closed and locked. There were only 2 more things I needed to do: 1. water the flowers in our cute window box and 2. take out the kitchen trash. 'Hmm, both of those things require going outside, so I'll wait until the morning to do that....'

worthless decision.

4:40am Saturday. I was rushing around with wet hair, with the greatest intention to take out that damn trash. But before I could do that, I got a phone call from the taxi company: 'Your cab is here. If you do not come outside in 2 minutes, the cab will leave.' So of course, I dropped what I was doing, grabbed my bag and ran outside to catch my taxi, leaving the trash and flowers in the dust.

5pm Saturday. I confessed to Mark about my utter fail. Mark scowled and said "Baaaaaaabe..." (disapprovingly).

6pm Sunday (a week later). We walked up to the apartment- dead flowers. I've never seen flowers so dead in my whole life. Fail. We walked into our apartment, and surprisingly there was not a putrid odor as I had expected! So Mark opened the lid to the trash can, and I immediately thought, 'hmm, I don't remember putting all that flax seed in the trash can.' Mark angrily carried the maggot-filled trash can outside as apologies flowed from my mouth. Needless to say, I cleaned the living hell out of that trash can with a power hose and lysol, majorly ashamed at my complete fail. It was probably the grossest moment in our marriage to date.

But, we are planning to buy more flowers and we have the cleanest trash can ever. And although the whole situation was admittedly my fault, Mark kindly (and silently) worked alongside me to clean up my mess. He could have tried to teach me a lesson by making me clean it up all by myself, but he didn't. I'm thankful for his gracious partnership. And I need to learn how to be a gracious partner in return.

But next time, I promise to take out the damn trash.