Bins

I did the bins early, as Sam was leaving, 8.15am, Sam was leaving kind of late. The bins were emptied quite late in the day, for quite some time, but lately they have been coming early. Someone had put cooking leftovers into the recycle bin, I didn’t realise until I was pouring the kitchen recycle bin into the outside bins. It was all wet and sloppy and when “gloop” all over the empty bottles and tins, sliding down into the gaps like vomit. "Blooop!" 

It looked like it came from our dinner, the other night, so it had nearly a week to rot and ferment, so it was stinky as well as slimy. It kept sliding down as I watched it, momentarily immobilised, as most of it slid out of sight. 

What to do?  Groan!

I had to tip the contents of the recycle bin onto our front walkway, and dig the food scraps out by hand, there was no other way to separate it out again. Tomato, what had been leafy greens, cheese and tomato sauce, possibly lasagne scrap scrapings, strawberry tops and the soft decaying strawberry flesh and the carcass of some animal that stank to high heaven. Possibly chicken. It all had that familiar smell of rotting, bad food. 

There was nothing else for it but to pick it out with my hands and toss it into a plastic bag. I’m surprised, I didn’t dry wretch, that rank smell normally makes my stomach turn and its contents rise into my throat in direct relation to how long I have to smell it. Blur! Just don’t think about it, I thought, which, of course, made me think about it more.

Sam had to step over it. "I'm glad it is you and not me." 

Me on my hands and knees. "Yeah, good onya," I said. Rotting food seeped into my nostrils, the slime stuck to my fingers like slime.

A lovely way to start the day, I thought. I started thinking about fruit smoothies, I giggled, but stopped quickly as my stomach went blurp and I could feel acid at the back of my tongue.

I wondered if the rubbish scum left on the walkway would be slippery, so I hosed it.