The Meeting of the Dumpster

I thought I’d share a funny, light hearted story with you. I hope you get as many laughs and as much pleasure out of it as I have.

Some friends and I have been collecting plastic for Trex as a project. In the end, you get a free Trex bench. 

It was my turn to collect from the local food shelf. So Steph and I hopped in Bertha and ran over to the food shelf. I parked alongside the docking area where there’s a convenient lift. I lined up my side doors with the lift and thought, I’ll just go in, put all the plastic on the lift, and lower it to the van.

I went inside and found there was no plastic in the bin. Okay, I thought, that makes my job easy.

I returned to the van to head out. Directly in front of the van was an asphalt ramp that lead up to the door of the building so I couldn’t drive forward. No big deal. I’ve backed Bertha up plenty of times. I didn’t even think twice about what I had to do.

I hopped in, threw it in reverse, watched my back up camera and started going backwards.

Suddenly I heard a loud, “SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH!”

I looked at Steph, she looked at me.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered with a shrug.

I backed up a tiny bit more.

“SCREEEEEEEEECH!”

I threw it in park, utterly confused, and got out. I walked around the back of the van to discover I had scraped along a dumpster. The pole that protrudes from the front edge. You know the one the garbage truck grabs to lift the dumpster.

Ok, weird, I thought. I knew the dumpster was there. I really didn’t think I was that close. How in the world did manage that?

I got back in thinking, surely I can just pull forward and away from the dumpster. I mean it’s just a pole. I start to ease forward and turn the wheel.

“SCREEEEEEEEEEECH!”

Steph just sat there looking at me completely dumbfounded. Later, when I asked her why she was looking at me so blankly, she replied, “I just couldn’t believe you had done that. I mean, I’ve driven in Bertha with you countless times and you handle that thing like a beast. I just couldn’t process how you’d done that!”

I said, “Steph, can you get out and just tell me when I’m away from the dumpster so I can pull away from it?”

She hops out and stands alongside the van.

“Ok, back up and turn your tires this way.” She points and directs.

I try it. “SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH!”

“Nope! Ok, forward and go this way!” She points again.

“SCREEEEEEEEECH!”

There’s nothing quite like the sound of metal on metal.

I get out again and go back to the van and dumpster. I have no idea, to this day, how I hooked my van onto that dumpster. I mean, there’s no hook! But try what I may, I could not get my van away from that dumpster. And at this point, the gouge down the side of the van was impressive.

As we stood there staring at each other with completely lost expressions, I see a car pull up. A man gets out and starts to walk to the nearby auto store. I must have been completely desperate at this point or totally hopeless because for some reason I decided to call out to this guy.

“Um, excuse me?! Can you help me get my van unhooked from this dumpster?!”

Steph whipped her head from me to the guy and back with this look that said, “I cannot believe you just did that!”

He walks over to us, looks at the van and dumpster hooked together, the gouge down the side of the van, and we two.

“Well, if you two ladies can push from that side and I pull from this side, I think we can slide the dumpster,” he quietly said.

So we heave. The dumpster moved a couple inches.

“One more time,” he said.

We heave again.

“I think that outta do it,” he said.

“Thank you,” I say out of my complete and total humiliation.

“Okay,” he replied as he turned and walked away.

Steph and I get in the van and look at each other. We giggle, then giggle some more, then look at each other and burst out in full blown, uncontrollable laughter.

I pull out my phone and text Andrew…

Thank God my husband has a sense of humor and I drive a 30 year old van!

It’s been a couple months since this happened. The embarrassment has faded just a little. But every time I drive by the food shelf and that auto shop, I wonder…”I wonder what kind of stories that guy tells about the two ladies with their van hooked to a dumpster. I wonder if there were security cameras.”

And every time I see that gouge in my van, I think about that “pregnant dumpster”!

I had shared this story with a couple friends, much to their delight. A couple weeks after, one friend texted me and said, “I just want you to know you help me get through my morning workouts every morning. I just think about your van story and laugh and it just helps me get moving!”

So, hopefully, this does the same for you. I hope it helps you know, I don’t have it all together, but I just keep going. And I find I may as well laugh at myself and let others laugh at me too!