Yesterday morning, 7:12 am. I rolled the trash cans down the driveway and left them at the curb. As I turned away, a motion caught my eye. Specifically a tidal wave of white wriggly maggots that foamed out from under the slightly ajar trash can lid.
Now. I am not a huge EEK-BUG! kind of person but I do have my limits. Yesterday I discovered maggots are significantly past my limit.
You see, my husband has been known to put things into the trash can without putting them in a plastic trash bag first. I have reminded him that this can leave the trash cans themselves quite dirty and stinky and I do not have any wish to clean them out by hand, if you get my drift. He wants to reduce how much we use plastic, a goal to which I also aspire.
However. When he put sub-par Indian take-out in the trash last week, the tops of some of the containers came open, the trash can lid was left ajar and flies found it and made their little babies and MAGGOTS OMG GAG RETCH BLEH.
I have to say I surprised myself. I wasn't angry at him. I understood his point of view, his choices, even though different from mine, were valid.
I told him about the maggots and we both screwed up our faces in matching horror. Gross, he said. Sorry.
Today, we have been married exactly nine years.
I am so proud of who we were nine years ago, young and brave and hopeful, and who we are now, older and wizened but still hopeful.
I was trying this morning to remember our wedding vows, we wrote them ourselves on a hike in the Berkeley Hills above his house. I knew I had them somewhere and finally found a copy, stuffed into our wedding album.
They were about listening, comforting, encouraging. About "supporting you as an individual and embracing you as a partner." But no where did they mention maggots.
Perhaps we need to add that one in.
Happy Anniversary CG.
7 comments:
Oh, happy anniversary, sweet friend. Hope you have a great day celebrating each other (maggots or no!).
Happy anniversary! I didn't know maggots were the correct anniversary gift for the 9th year.... thought it was pottery or leather. ;)
Oh, man, I thought you were going a totally different direction with that. This is what I'd expected:
"I have to say I surprised myself. I wasn't angry at him. I understood his point of view, his choices, even though different from mine, were valid. And yet the consequences of his valid actions were just as real, and so he spent his evening scrubbing out the trash cans by hand."
Happy anniversary!
And @ Swistle - that is exactly how the conversation would have gone at my house.
My husband was, for a long time, opposed to putting trash bags in our kitchen trash and recycling cans. At some point I laid it out very explicitly for him - he could do it his way but he would ALWAYS be the one to take out the trash and clean out the trash cans if we were going to go without a liner. He relented and now I probably deal with the trash at least twice as often as he does, but we're both happy so it's win-win.
We wrote our own wedding vows too - not together - we each wrote them separately and heard them for the first time at the ceremony...and in his he vowed to make me late night snacks. And I have reminded him of that vow on many occasions. =)
Swistle- Hahaha! Yes, I would have considered it, as would he, if the thunderstorm hadn't taken care of it. After they passed, the cans were, relatively clean.
But I don't imagine he will be putting loose food in the trash cans ever again. And if he does....
First, GROSS on the maggots. I once took the trash to the curb and the entire can was filled with them. I haven't touched trash of any kind since.
And Congrats on 9 years :)
Congratulations on making a happy 9 years, AND surviving the maggots--- something I'm not sure I could have done.
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