icing from my cake

Sometimes we are a victim of circumstance and sometimes it’s our own damn fault. Sometimes it’s both and that’s when you know you’re really in for it. With a less embarrassing story I guess I could build it up with all sorts of references to unseen forces moving in the background, fate pulling strings behind some cosmic curtain or my own self-destructive tendencies manifesting themselves at a particularly inappropriate time but in this case I think it’s best to plow along and try to tell this story with as little embellishment as possible.

I write a lot so it follows that I spend a disproportionate amount of time in front of my computer so it also follows that I consume a disproportionate amount of porn. Most of the time it is sprung upon me as I try to Google something completely unrelated and I find myself defenseless to its many charms. That being said I use a disproportionate amount of tissue paper at my computer. In my defense, sometimes I find the act of masturbation completely abhorrent and engage it quickly and with the same enthusiasm I have for folding my clothes when they come out of the dryer. It is simply something I have to do so I can get back to work. Perhaps it is because of this compulsory and loveless relationship I have with the act itself that I am so callous about the need to dispose of the evidence of these transgressions. Sometimes my waste basket is overflowing with these little formerly-smoking guns.

Today I found myself at exactly that crossroads. I went to throw out a fax I had received when I realized there was no more room at the inn. Or in the inn. Whatever. Usually I would just jam my hand in and push everything down but given the contents I was not inclined to follow this course of action lest my hand return to me sticky and in need of immediate decontamination. Looking out the front window I saw that although my garbage can was at the curb I was in luck and the garbage men had not yet arrived for pick-up. The use of the word luck in that last sentence will later be up for further discussion. Perhaps it was because I thoughtlessly referred to them as garbage men as opposed to sanitational engineers that I brought this upon myself. Whatever the case the story moves pretty quickly from here.

I run outside with my trash can tucked under my arm and realize that although it is a bit breezy out the temperature is unseasonably warm and the neighborhood is choked with small children laughing and frolicking. I think to myself I really do need to get out more and enjoy the nice weather and I am truly feeling that all is right with the world when I open the lid of my garbage and deposit my trash into it.

Almost on cue I hear the rumbling of the garbage truck making its rounds. I slowly backpedal up my driveway but I make sure to give a nice wave to the garbage engineers so they know I in no way consider myself superior to them. I stand and watch fascinated as the truck stops and then a giant metal arm reaches out and grabs my garbage can like some sort of fetid Transformer. It hoists it quickly skyward, flips it over and deposits it directly over the top of the truck so the refuse can topple out.

Here’s the problem. As you might have guessed from my earlier remarks I tend to be the type of person who instead of taking out the trash when he should or the garbage can down to the curb on schedule will step on it and push it down… whenever said garbage isn’t soaked my own DNA samples of course. My garbage can was indeed upside down but I noted that all of the garbage did not come hurtling quickly down into the garbage truck. Apparently I had packed it a little tight and it was taking awhile for the forces of gravity to work their magic. Instead only my recent contributions were coming out and given the stiff winds these contributions were not in fact headed so much north south as east west. To help you further picture what met my eyes I will just come out and say it… all my soiled tissues were blowing all over the street. They looked like a swarm of white butterflies taking flight from the top of the garbage truck.

Enter the helpful children.

It took me a full 3 or 4 second before what I was witnessing translated into action but once I understood the implications of a dozen neighborhood children scrambling to help me retrieve my ‘butterflies’ and put them back into the garbage can I became a whirling dervish of activity. “Nooooooo!!!” I yelled as I charged out into the street to start to recover my cum-soaked tissues. “No need to pick them up, I got them!” I bellowed as the streets seem to teem with impressionable children eager to help. “No Sally, that’s not frosting! Just put it down!” Standing in the eye of the semen snowstorm it occurred to me that I really need to cut down on the porn. Good lord.

Typically I handle these tissues with the same care that a guy in a hazmat suit handles radioactive waste but instead I was grabbing these tissues with the same fervor that kids grab candy falling from a compromised piñata. Unfortunately so were the kids.

I had to stand there as they each approached me and handed over what they had collected. I reminded each of them the value of washing their hands. In my head I could already hear the wailing sirens of the police that would no doubt be coming to collect me. Even if they don’t show up every boy out there will remember what happened and I’ll need to move at least 3 states away before they hit puberty and put the pieces together.

May god have mercy on my soul… Sally said it was the worst frosting she ever tasted.