The Garbage

My husband's only repeat job inside the house is taking out the garbage. I would have thought that, being the only boy in his family, he would know exactly how to do this.


I was wrong.

There is apparently more to it than I know.

First: my perception. When the garbage bag is nearing full, its time to take it out of the garbage can and put it outside/in the garage.

Now: Steve's perception. The garbage truck comes on Tuesday, so the bag needs to stay in there until garbage day.

Most weeks, our garbage can is completely full by about Saturday afternoon (reason for this below). That means that there are still three full days until the truck comes. My solution? Take the garbage out on Saturday when its full and put an empty bag in the garbage can. Steve's solution? Every time you walk past the garbage can, try to push it down a little farther so you don't have to take it out quite yet.

I tend to stay out of the garbage situation since I want Steve to put on his big-boy undies and figure it out all by himself. I will happily pile things on the floor in front of and around the garbage can to help him get into the time-to-take-the-garbage-out mindset. (Update: It's been 5 years and he still doesn't quite get it.) I am concerned about what will happen once the baby starts crawling, but I still have a few months for garbage-taking-out boot camp.

Steve has gotten into this funky cycle since we moved to Shevegas. When he does actually take the garbage out, he will simply lift the bag out, tie it, and put it in the garage. Sounds normal, right? Well, if you will take a look at the picture you will notice all the junk laying around it. He actually does NOT pick this stuff up and stick it in that bag. As everyone knows, there is always a little more room in the bag once it has been taken out of the garbage can. You would think he would want to maximize this potential garbage space since he seems so intent on maximizing by leaving it in there for the full week in the first place! (Keep in mind that we still have yet to get to the little garbage cans scattered throughout the house.) He will then get out a new bag and put it in the garbage can, then place all the stuff on the floor into the clean bag.

There are two possible scenarios from this point on.

1. Tuesday scenario: If this process happens on a Tuesday, it is possible that the garbage can will already be near half-full after picking up everything that has fallen on the floor. He then goes around to all the bathrooms, etc., and gets the smaller garbage cans and dumps them into the fresh bag. The garbage can is now solidly half-full, and the garbage truck hasn't even come yet. But! He will not take out this bag because he is thinking "I just replaced it. It doesn't need to go out yet." This is the reason the garbage can is almost always overflowing by Saturday afternoon.

2. Non-Tuesday scenario: In some rare instances I will finally cave and say something like "Could you please deal with the garbage?" (Sometimes it does get a little more severe and I might say "Do you not think the garbage needs to go out yet?" And in some rare instances I might even say "Get off the couch and deal with the garbage!") He will then dutifully get up, remove the bag, and take it out. (On a good day he might even replace the bag with a clean one.) I then proceed with filling it up. When garbage day comes, the garbage can might be 1/2 to 2/3 full, but he will NOT take it out at this point because he has already taken it out for this garbage day so it obviously doesn't need to go out again.

So you see, it has little to do with how full the garbage can is at the time of garbage pick-up, and more to do with whether it has been taken out in the past 7 days or not.

We did have somewhat of a breakthrough this past garbage day. The attached picture is of the garbage can on Tuesday morning of this week (side note: garbage day was Wednesday of this week due to Memorial Day. Since Tuesday was not garbage day, he obviously needed to wait until Wednesday morning to take it out.) When the time came I was astonished to find him taking this garbage bag out WITHOUT prompting, and, after taking it to the garage he then replaced the bag too! I did still have to pick up the surrounding garbage and throw it into the clean bag, and since I was so proud of him I even got all the little garbage cans and emptied them into the big one for him. Again at this point the clean garbage bag was now just over 1/2 full. I had some fridge cleaning to do, so I threw some more stuff in there, and the bag eventually ended up being about 5/6 full. He came in a couple hours later and said, "How did this get so full already?!" I mentioned that I emptied all the little garbage cans, and had to comment "...and that's what happens when you empty them after taking it out..." (He was so shocked that it was already so full he didn't even notice the extra comment.) He then actually took the second bag out and also put that out at the curb! Two in one day!!!

He didn't replace the bag, so I started tossing stuff in there without the bag and he eventually realized that he maybe needed to put a clean one in there.

I have high hopes that we will make it an entire week on one bag! Such progress!