Post Christmas Blues

Today is the first Monday after the Christmas holiday week. It's a busy day here at the Dump. We have a full staff of people hauling trash and clearing stuff up.

You'd be surprised how many people are waiting when we open the gates at 7:30am. A long line of SUVs festooned with dead Christmas trees, one's that were likely brought inside the day after Thanksgiving and now the homeowners' tolerance for seasonal decorations was at a nadir. Their urgency to get rid of that now despised festive symbol is so high that fistfights threaten to break-out between drivers who feel that others may be attempting to usurp their place in line.

Then there is the wave of unwanted junk gifts that disappointed recipients could not wait to discard. Most of these are unceremoniously (and sometimes, angrily) tossed directly into the land-fill dumpsters - as if to ensure that they are never recycled.

These discards include: Fruit cakes (by the thousands), those cheap scented candles that smell like a french whore's buttcrack, boxes of imported fruit candies that taste like fishmeal, crappy perfume that you buy at the drug store, useless and often ugly replicas of snowmen or Christmas elves, reams of losing scratch tickets, anything made in Malaysia, tapes and CD's of Jim Nabors singing Christmas Carols, and piles and tons of other disappointments.

The staff likes to take coffee breaks near the take-and-leave section during these days after the big holiday. A Lot of people get booze gifts that they do not want. Maybe it conflicts with their meds or something. Anyway, many's the time one of us has come across a bottle or two of unopened fine single malt scotch. Or fruit flavored Absolut. You never know.

I was sitting at my desk in the cobb house when George came in wearing his new "Recycle This!" Tee Shirt. He had found some treasure at the take and leave, and was beaming. "Look at this," he shouted, "Someone threw away a set of sterling silver shrimp forks." He showed me a set of twelve small 3 tined forks, each neatly tucked into its own slot in brown velvet within a leather bound case. "These are worth hundreds of dollars."
"To whom?" I wondered. It seemed like a lot of work to keep a set of silver polished and ready for that event when you serve shrimp cocktail to twelve guests. Funk that!

I was in a vaguely blue mood. With the stress of the holidays behind me I should have felt relieved. I guess I was disappointed by the gifts I had received. The wife had been online and purchased a large container of Viagra and a tube of Penis enlarger for me. My boss had given me a monogrammed organizer. A friend gave me "The Complete Guide to Composting." In the Yankee Swap, I had ended up with a $1.50 box of ribbon candy (and I had put in a gift worth $5.00). Some cheap fuck probably regifted it in the first place. I chucked it angrily into the dumpster.

But there is a new year ahead...Things could get better.