And she went dumpster-diving...

OK, when I welcomed you all to read my blog (See the post called, "Welcome to my world") I said that there were guaranteed to be funny stories. Well hold on to your hats, because I am keeping that promise!

Life in general does seem to hold a certain amount of humor. We may not always see it at the time, but it's there. My life seems to hold a little more than most, or maybe I just see it and laugh at myself more than most people do. Either way, I have had plenty of funny and ridiculous things happen to me. Let me tell you what happened today...

I got off work and came straight home. It's been a crazy week and I had been looking forward to the end of the workday since about 3:00. (Well, probably earlier than that, but that is when I acknowledged it openly...) Between the nasty summer cold that left me sounding like a man, my first week in an entirely new department with entirely new people and duties, my sister getting back into town, and my roommate for the past year getting ready to move out I was ready to get home and pack for vacation!

In preparation for the trip I hope to make tomorrow with my favorite (and only) sister, I grabbed some trash out of the passenger seat. I planned on tossing it in the dumpster which is conveniently located on the way from my car to my apartment. I have done this many, many times. I reach the dumpster, toss in the trash, watch it fall to the bottom of the mostly empty dumpster. And at the same time I was horrified to hear the jingle of my work keys as they fell along with the trash into the gigantic dumpster and then watched as they gently sank beneath the small layer of trash that was in the very bottom.

Thoughts were rapidly dashing through my head. Such as, "Those were my work keys. They just fell in a dumpster. I have to get them out. I cannot reach or even see them. I have to get them out. I wonder how hard it would be for my work to replace... Yeah, no, I have to get them out. But they are in a dumpster. Oh man! How am I even gonna get in there? I have to get them out. Oh stink!" Literally.

I quickly realize that I am too short to get into the dumpster, even from the side door, by myself. So I run upstairs and find my sister in my room. I explain to her what just happened and ask for her help. She is, of course, laughing. I change into something more suitable to dumpster diving than my work clothes and we head down to assess the situation.

We decide that since the keys were not visible and it was too far down to reach them with a hanger, that if I had a chair I could climb in through the sliding side door. So we grab one of my folding chairs and lug it down the stairs to the dumpster. I set the chair up and climbed into the side door.

As I am about to climb in I see my admittedly germophobic roommate arrive for one last load of stuff. I hurriedly explain what on earth possessed me to get into the dumpster as she gets one last horrified look at me while I climb in.

Once up there, I had a new problem to face. I hadn't realized how very far down the bottom floor of the dumpster still was! So now, I am perched precariously on the opening while my sister is watching and laughing hysterically at me through the opening directly across me on the other side. And I don't even know how many people were staring at me as they drove by.

I finally decided that I am just going to have to jump the rest of the way down onto the bags that are lining the very bottom. I do. Squish. As my feet are sinking into the bags of garbage, I reach down and start to look for my keys. Thankfully I had seen the general area where they had landed and was able to recover them quickly without frantically scrambling through mountains of trash.

Then I realized I couldn't get out. My helpful and loving sister, who is still laughing at me and telling me to just be grateful she wasn't filming this and posting it on Facebook or Youtube, kindly hands me the folding chair so I can use it to climb back out. Then it was all over... other than recovering my chair, going back up stairs, burning the clothes and shoes I wore (ok, a slight exaggeration), and scrubbing myself as well as the keys and the chair down thoroughly with soap and/or strong cleaners.

It was one of the grossest things I have ever done! But it was also pretty funny! And I was truly grateful that the dumpster wasn't full! Not sure WHAT I would have done then! Anyone else have any such stories to tell??? If so, please share!