If there’s one thing my Pops is really skilled at it, it’s loading up the truck and taking a bunch of garbage to the dump.  Just about every weekend when I would come home from college, Pops would come wake me up at, like 7:30 and say, “I’m making a dump run and you’re coming too, get up.”

So I’d get up and brush my teeth and get in the truck and off we’d go.

Dump runs were way more exciting back in the day when we had the actual dump truck.  It was this old-timey truck (ok, maybe from the 80′s) that had been used for railroad maintenance (ever seen those driving on railroad tracks?  so cool) and some guy from Kirkwood had turned it back into a real truck in shop class.  Anyway, Pops got it on the cheap and we used it for our “farm truck”.

Basically that meant we went to get rock from the quarry in it, and used it for dump runs.

The dump truck was coolest because we never had to unload anything when we got to the dump, Pops would just get it all lined up to the trash pile and then stand out there and holler to me, in the cab, “PUSH THE HANDLE”.  And when I pushed the handle in, up would go the dump bed.  It was hydraulic, as if you care.  All the trash would go falling out into the pile ‘o dump garbage, and then off we’d go.

Pure excitement.  Especially when we stopped at the gas station on the way home for breakfast.  (Read: Pepsi and a Snickers.)

Fast forward, like, ten years to when Joey and I bought our first house.  The day after we closed, we started ripping out trim and carpet.  We threw it out back in the yard.  After three weeks of this, the pile kept getting bigger and bigger.  Eventually, a destroyed refrigerator and mangled up dishwasher were added to the yard.  Oh, and let’s not forget the massive pile of broken down boxes and styrofoam filler that were overflowing off our front porch.

If ever the term “white trash” applied to Joey and I, it has been over the last week.  Because we are white, and our yard was full of trash.

In fact, I have seen one of our neighbors walking the fence row between our yards, inspecting the growing piles of trashes in our backyard looking stressed about the low quality kids who moved in next door.

This morning though?  Pops showed up with a U-Haul trailer.  He drove that trailer back into the yard and we filled that entire thing up with all the trash in our yard, including the dishwasher and refrigerator.  Then we took it to the dump.  They made us pay $100.00 to get rid of that junk, but it is gone and done and smashed by the big yellow smashing machine that has a name, and I can’t think of it.  It’s not even exclusively used at dumps, they use it to dig holes in the ground. (HELP.  Does anyone know what those are called?)

I tried to pay for the dump run, but Pops said, “why don’t you just buy us doughnuts later.”

So then we met up with everyone at Dunkin Donuts and everyone else tried to pay for the doughnuts.  But I prevailed, I tell you.  I slapped down my Amex and told the lady behind the register (who looked like she could not wait to see us leave her restaurant we had caused so much trouble) that she would be taking MY card and no one else’s.

It worked.  But it was only $16.00, so I think somehow I still came out ahead on this somehow.

Now it’s lunchtime.  Everyone else is eating and they’re like, “Where’s Jenna anyway, she was the one who was hungry…” and the reality is I am here, sitting in the comfy chair blogging this post before all the words fall out of my ears and I forget what I was going to say.  Blogging for me is like expensive chocolate. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

I think it’s all out of my head now.  And I look at this and I think it really wasn’t worth holding off on eating lunch for either.  Absolutely 0% of it is profound in any way.

Par for the course.