Tuesday is trash day.

Who says you can't go home again? I returned to the great State of North Carolina on Sunday, May 25, in order to work as a law clerk for the summer. To say that my mom was thrilled to have me home would be an understatement. Mom is a bit overbearing, at times; she means well, but her good intentions can drive you crazy. So, within a few days of my arrival, I was thrilled to be able to move from the spare bedroom at my parents' house to the rental trailer that is adjacent to their lot. As I've mentioned before, it's not the greatest place on earth, but I have tried to focus on the positive aspects of my humble abode, e.g., it is rent-free, it is quiet, it is peaceful, and I am not living out of the spare bedroom of someone's house for an entire summer.

Once I had set up house, mom came over on Monday, June 2, to inform me that "Tuesday is trash day," which meant that I needed to take all of my trash to their receptacle. My mom moves the trash receptacle to the side of the house on Monday afternoon when she gets home from work—the side of the house being about thirty feet from the back of the house. Why does she move it there? I don't know, unless it is to serve as a visual reminder to my stepdad to take it to the curb. Week after week, mom only moves it to the side of the house, and my stepdad takes it from there, down the sixty feet or so to the end of the drive. Well, on this particular Monday, I had only been living in the trailer for a day or two, so I hadn't accumulated enough trash to warrant a trip to the receptacle, but I was glad to know about trash day.

The next Monday, June 9, I came home from work, and immediately started changing clothes in order to go exercise, when I heard my mother banging on the door and calling to me from the front porch. I threw on some clothes and hurried to let her in. “Tomorrow is trash day,” she said as I opened the door. “Ok,” I replied, and then we both just stood there staring at each other. “Do you have any trash?” she asked me. “I don’t think so,” I said. And, after a few other pleasantries, she walked away empty-handed, heading for the trash receptacle—moving it around to the side of the house.

On Monday, June 16, mom called me on the intercom. (Yes, we have an intercom system between the two houses.) “Remember, tomorrow is trash day,” she said. I pressed the intercom button and said, “I know that!” and released the button. “How in the world have I functioned as a normal adult without my mother around to remind of such important events as ‘trash day’? I have married, divorced, birthed and raised two stable children, moved to another state, and gone to law school, yet she feels the need to remind me on a weekly basis that ‘Tuesday is trash day.’” All of which was said after the intercom button was released.

For the record, I have not been accumulating trash like some Howard Hughes recluse. I regularly take the trash to the large trash receptacle located behind mom's house; but I just don't do it on Mondays. I may do it on Thursday afternoon or Saturday morning. Since the trash is picked up on a weekly basis, I just don't see the urgency in making sure that all of my trash is in the receptacle by Monday night. Should I miss this trash day, another one will roll around in a week, ya know? Do I really need to explain this to her? I don't know. What I do know is that this was the third week in a row that I had been reminded about trash day, and it was getting on my last nerve!! But this story only gets better!

On Monday, June 23, mom comes over after work to visit. She sits down and we chit chat for a while. I know that she is here to remind me about the trash, but I play it cool. When she gets up to leave she says, “Well, I’m going to go. Why don’t you let me take your trash for you?” And as I reply, “I don’t have any trash,” my mom starts heading for the kitchen trash can. “Jackie this trash can is almost full,” she reports to me (as if I didn’t know). “Leave it alone,” I say. But she’s already on her way to the bathroom, and she yells to me, “This trash can in here needs to be emptied too.”
“Leave it alone,” I say louder.
“I can take it with me,” she persists—still yelling at me from the bathroom.
“DON’T TOUCH THAT TRASH, WOMAN!” I yell back. I am already envisioning the 9-1-1 call and the deputy’s incident report that reads, “Violent domestic disturbance between mother and daughter about trash.” Back to reality, though, there is silence in the bathroom, followed by her footsteps coming back down the hall. Fortunately for her, she is NOT carrying the trash bag. She walks right by me and says, “Well, just call me if you want me to come back after it,” and she leaves.

Is this how people go insane? Is it the slow, methodical chipping away at their intelligence until all that is left is the hollow shell of what could have been but for “trash day” reminders? I don’t know; but I think it warrants investigation.

Do you think I’ve heard the last of trash day? If so, you are mistaken. Last Monday, July 7, as I walked into the house after work, I just stopped and stared at the kitchen trash can. It was empty. The bathroom trash can was too. All that was left was the empty container. My trash had been stolen or else I am one step closer to going insane.