Arlo Guthrie's song Alice's Restaraunt comes to mind as I create this post. I guess you could say I've always held kind of a special place for the song ever since I first heard it, as the storyline is very similiar to an event in my life some time ago.  My first serious relationship with a man was with my highschool sweetheart. We 'dated' off and on all through grade school, then 'seriously' during my final two years of high school (his last three). Following his graduation in '98, we were eager to move in together and begin life, as most young couples are. As a young couple just starting out in the world, we were very fortunate in the sense that we never had to rent a place to live, although we did rent the lot that our home sat on. We had a little money and put a small down payment on a tiny mobil home, setting up payment arrangements with the previous owners for the remaining amount owed. I think it was a 10x55 trailer, older than dirt, solid as a rock, and what we considered cozy - and of course, not a bad investment considering what little we had to work with as we ventured out on our own. It was a two bedroom...well, I thought of it more as a 1 1/2 bedroom, given the fact that what was supposed to be the spare bedroom was also the only location for a washer and dryer, leaving only enough room in there for a twin sized bed. Our bedroom was far from a 'master' bedroom, offering just enough room for a double bed, one dresser, and the built-in closet that trailer bedrooms are known for, which always seem to take up more space in the room than there storage capacity is worth. There was just enough room in the kitchen for a small dining table and maybe two people, if one was siting at the table while the other was moving about preparing a meal or cleaning up. From the kitchen, you could easily spit into the living room with little effort (ya know, if you wanted to). I think they call this an open floor plan, which I've seen in countless trailers, and never really cared for the design. I prefer a partial divider between the kitchen and dining room, such as a bar or a set of floor cabinets with a countertop, providing that the dwelling is large enough to accomodate such a set up, and our first home definitely wasn't. Back to the living room - if I remember correctly, we were able to squeeze one full size couch, one small entertainment center, and one small chair into this room. Oh yea, and a footlocker laid down in front of the couch (which I placed back to the kitchen as a make-shift partitian) acted as a coffee table. What little floor space that was left in the living room, was just about enough space for our two dogs to lay on while we watched T.V. in the evenings. There's not much to say about the bathroom, except there was very little of it. I'll just say that while I've always been a big woman, this is the first home I've lived in that my left hip and leg actually touched the side of the bathtub when I sat on the crapper. On a possitive note, if you were sick with the flu and 'had it coming out both ends,' there was no trouble at all, as the sink was less than a foot in front of you. Or, I guess you could have sat sideways on the crapper and aimed for the tub. Anyway, like I said, it was cozy, it was our first home, and in no time we'd own it.

So, how is it that we became what some may consider 'garbage criminals?' As young adults we never gave much thought towards trash disposal, with everything else going on in life - making money, sex, spending money, sex, partying with friends, sex, camping, sex, etc. Of course our household garbage began accumulating over time in black trash bags in the front yard. Eventually this posed as a problem because we had three or four cats that went outside regularly, and I think every neighbor around us also had cats. Also, living in the country, we always had racoons and skunks pratoling our yard. It was only a matter of time before we got tired of cleaning up the trash animals had strewn across our yard, and was fed up with re-bagging it all, that we got smart and bought a half a dozen plastic garbage cans with locking lids. When these were full we realized that we had to start doing something different and get our garbage to the dump. Wouldn't ya know, the dump was closed on the day we both had off from work together and actually had the motivation to finally do something about our trash build-up. I'm not sure which one of us came up with the brilliant idea, but we got the notion that we could deposit our dozen or so bags of trash into a dumpster located behind a local store - just one time, realizing that we had to stay on top of our garbage disposal on a regular basis from now on. So, one night when we knew the store would be closed, he loaded up his car and set off to the dumpster (leaving rakes, shovels and implements of destruction at home). What we didn't know was that our local trash guy (whom, we both knew personally) emptied this dumpster, and made pick ups in our neighborhood, on a regular basis. You can imagine the surprise on the morning cashier's face when she discovered that the store's dumpster was reaching its full capacity, when just yesterday it was maybe half full. Although we only had a dozen or so bags, it wasn't hard to tell that overnight the dumpster had somehow taken in some new 'occupants.' She called the local trash guy to come empty it. Knowing that he had just been there a couple days ago, and usually only visited the store for a pick up once a week at most, he got curious and opened one or two of the bags on top of the heap. Realizing this was household trash, he pryed further and found a utility bill...including our name, address and telephone number. We got a phone call that afternoon informing us that it was a criminal offense to dispose of our garbage in a private dumpster, and while the trash man was more than willing to include us on his regular route, we would be expected to pay a disposal fee for each bag of trash that we had deposited.

So, while Arlo's story of Alice's Restaraunt is a bit different from mine, I can still easily relate, and find the song amusing every time I hear it. And although I don't have "twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one" to remind me of the stupidity of this lesson learned, I don't think I'll soon forget.