It looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie: A light rain fell, accentuating the putrid smell of rot. Heavy mist made silhouettes of the mountains of drywall scraps, bent rebar, and splintered wooden beams jutting out at odd angles. The ground was thick with mud and marked by deep, massive tire tracks. We were dwarfed all around by enormous steel trucks working to pile the mountains of waste ever higher.
We were at the city landfill. The snow had just melted, leaving behind deep puddles and mud you could sink up to your knees in. Why do I always find myself in these bizarre situations when youngest comes along to help?
I’ve been to this dump a million times. I get inundated with cardboard boxes and pallets in the course of business. When I have enough to fill my minivan — which is A LOT — I take it all to the dump to recycle. Only, they won’t recycle the pallets. For those they send me up a steep dirt road to the construction waste area. That’s where I found myself the other day. In my slippers because I forgot to put shoes on.
By some miracle my ancient minivan, bought used when I was expecting my 14 year-old sidekick, made it to the top of that bog of a hill. But there we sat, waiting behind a massive dump truck.
Another truck passed us on his way back down, the driver throwing me a dirty look as he maneuvered through the deep muck on the shoulder of the narrow road. For a road made to service dump trucks it was ridiculously narrow.
As we waited there, I imagined us sinking helplessly, hopelessly in the muck like Artax in the Swamps of Sadness. I wondered just how big of a fiasco this routine trip was going to become, picturing myself in my slippers, knee-deep in mud, trying to push my van out with the help of some irritated truck drivers. Or worse, sitting there for hours while they all drove around me, glaring at me like that first guy, or laughing.
Thankfully, when the truck finally moved we had no trouble rolling forward. A path finally opened for us to pull as close to the junk pile as I could, in an area where the mud wasn’t too bad. Youngest hopped out to unload the pallets while I kept my slippers clean in the car. Everyone up there seemed annoyed by us so we were trying hurry.
You know who was most annoyed? That jerk we sat waiting behind. I really did try not to be in anyone’s way. He had pulled so far forward that I thought he was going to another area. Not the case. He actually had planned to back in right about where we were. And friends, he wasn’t about to let some idiot woman in a minivan keep him waiting. As my child pulled pallets out of the back of the car, that JERK started backing up STRAIGHT AT ME! I couldn’t move with my boy out there and I couldn’t stop that a**h*** from backing up. I thought for sure I’d be crushed.
At the last second that clever man angled just so that he missed the front of my car by about five inches.
Ever feel murdery? I kinda wanted to strangle that guy.
But before I could enjoy any sense of relief, or kill anyone, another equally horrible man showed up and started backing in just as closely behind us. WHERE MY CHILD WAS!!! He had certainly seen my boy unloading the car. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE???
So I’m yelling to my baby to hurry and get in the car before these maniacs kill us, he’s dutifully trying to unload the last pallet, and I’m begging him to forget it and just get in the car. Maniac #2 finally develops some sense of humanity and stops long enough for the kid to close the back door and get in the car. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. What a JOKE!
They were nothing like those sweet garbage men on YouTube who befriend adoring preschoolers. The guys at our dump are straight out of Mad Max.
We drove directly to the carwash and then got ourselves a treat at Sonic — our reward for surviving Fury Road.
(The mystery drivers in my Constructions Trucks coloring table runner are the YouTube variety.)
