Eaten By A Trash Can

Wednesday night was one of those nights where I just couldn’t get to sleep, no matter how hard I tried, and I was up and down all night. For some reason, my ribs were aching terribly on the left side, which is the position I sleep in while spooning Terry. So when I finally did fall asleep, I woke up later than usual.

Terry had made some of her delicious overnight yeasted browned butter waffles for brunch, and by the time we ate them and then I attended to my usual morning e-mails, it was after 2 PM before I started writing.

But I made up for lost time, cranking out a little over 3,500 words in my new Big Lake mystery book for the day. I plan to be back at it again today, hopefully with an earlier start. I would really like to have this book done and out sometime in July if I can.

Meanwhile, Terry was backing up all of the files from her old HP laptop computer to One Drive in preparation for retiring it to start using her new Surface Book 3. Setting up a new computer is always intimidating for us, and someone suggested we use the Geek Squad at Best Buy to do it. But I’ve heard too many horror stories from people who went that route. We’ll muddle through on our own one way or another.

Thursdays are trash days around here, and the garbage trucks come by first thing in the morning, so folks usually take their trash cans out to the curb Wednesday afternoon or evening. I was just about finished with my writing for the day and was saving everything to my different backup files and devices when I heard a loud noise outside and someone calling out like they were in pain. I looked outside and across the street, and down about two houses I saw one of the big blue plastic trash containers lying on its side in the street with a pair of legs sticking out of it.

Because I have a twisted mind, my first thought was that someone had been eaten by a trash can. Then the next thought was that someone threw away a perfectly good person. But it only took a nanosecond or two for that all to go through my mind before I was out the door and heading over that way. An older gentleman (yes, older than me, if you can believe it) had been wheeling his trash can out and got too close to the slightly inclined curb, and the next thing he knew, he had lost control of it and wound up headfirst inside.

He had scraped his face across the edge of the heavy plastic trash bin and it was pretty bloody, and he was obviously shaken. I helped him get to his feet and asked if he needed medical attention, and he said he didn’t think so. Except for the blood, which always looks bad on facial cuts, he seemed alright. A lady came out of the house to help him inside, and I got the trash can out of the street before checking one more time to see if there was anything else I could do.

A couple of hours later I saw him again, and he thanked me for my help. It looked like he had a pretty nasty black eye forming, but aside from that and some bruises, I think he’s going to be okay.

Aside from all of that, we have had two tragedies here in Florida. Wednesday evening a young Daytona Beach police officer investigating a suspicious vehicle was shot in the head and is in the hospital clinging to life as I write this. A massive manhunt is underway for the perpetrator from here in Florida all the way to Atlanta, Georgia, where he has ties. And then yesterday morning the news was full of the collapse of a 12-story condominium building down in the Miami area. The 11:00 o’clock news last night said that there were three confirmed fatalities and at least 99 people still unaccounted for. A lot of folks need your prayers right now.

And finally, to close on a lighter note, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

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Thought For The Day – The easy path won’t lead you to the best views.