I've got a lot of screaming to do....

For some strange reason, several times this week I've found myself in situations that have caused me to run around and scream like a banshee. Most of these situations have also been accompanied by a severe case of 'the willies'.


I looked it up on line and here's the definition of 'the willies':


A state of nervous restlessness or agitation: fidget (often used in plural), jitter (used in plural), jump (used in plural), shiver1 (used in plural), tremble (often used in plural). Informal all-overs, shake (used in plural). Slang heebie-jeebies, jim-jams. See calm/agitation, fear/courage.


From now on, I will not say "That gives me the willies!" I will now say "That gives me the jim-jams!"

Love it.


Anyway...first I had the incident with the chipmunk, which wasn't necessarily jim-jam inducing, but certainly made me scream. Then the other day at lunch I had a brief encounter with a bumblebee that caused a mini-screaming fit accompanied by a minor case of the jim-jams.

Last night however was the capper, as I suffered a major jim-jam attack, complete with screaming and running around in a circle....seriously, I was a bit out of control....in fact, I'm still showing some jim-jam symptoms whilst typing this....


Unlike most places on the planet, our town doesn't allow us to just put our trash on the curb in any old trash bag. In order for them to pick up our trash, we need to buy special 'town trash bags' and put any and all trash in those 'special bags' for pick up. If you happen to have something that won't fit into a town trash bag... say, a couch for example, you can buy a 'bulk sticker', throw that on said bulky item and they'll take it away for you...as long as you only put out one bulk item per week!!
Normally it's not an issue, because Jim and I only generate one tall kitchen trash bag per week, and we can fit three of those tall kitchen bags into one town trash bag. Throughout most of the year, we only have to put out the trash every three weeks, and in the weeks where we don't put trash on the curb, the trash is kept hidden away in the covered trash barrel where it's 'safe' from animals and other things that may want to get into it (fans, stalkers, etc...).


So...last night I requested Jim's help in transferring the trash bag from the covered barrel into the town trash bag. Since we had the BBQ over the weekend, there was a TON of trash in the barrel, so immediately following the BBQ, I crammed everything down and tied the bag so that when trash day came, it would be easy to deal with. Well, Jim and I went outside last night and I had the BRILLIANT idea of laying the trash barrel on its side so I could just slide the bag out and into the awaiting town trash bag.

WELL - as I pulled out the trash bag, I noticed that the entire bottom of the barrel was filled with HUNDREDS of squirming, writhing maggots.


I promptly let go of the bag and went into some sort of tribal, primitive circle dance throwing my arms and legs into about 15 different directions all the while screaming and yelling.

Jim stood there and watched.

While I was in mid-fit, Jim calmly walked over to the shed and got a giant container of bug killer that we use to keep the local ant population under control. He sprayed the hell out of the trash can, but since they aren't really living breathing insects at this point, they weren't really affected and continued their creeping and crawling.

It's kind of like spraying an egg with chicken killer....it ain't gonna do much.

Jim decided that we should just put the trash bag back in the barrel, cover it up, put a 'bulk sticker' on the entire thing and be done with it. I agreed with him 100%, so I ran into the house, grabbed a pair of winter gloves (not even kidding) and shoved the bag back into the barrel. This too was accompanied by more screaming and reprise of the previously mentioned tribal dance.

Once the barrel was tagged and on the curb, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and was able to continue on with my night.


It's always something...

UPDATE!!!!

I just heard from Jim, and apparently the BRILLIANT folks that collect our trash took the bulk sticker off the barrel, emptied it, and left the barrel behind. Seriously?!?!? Do they think that we don't know how to put trash in one of their bags? How much clearer can we be? I put the sticker on the barrel. If I couldn't fit our bag into one of their bags, I would have put the bag on the curb and put a sticker on that.

I'm hoping that the barrel is emptied and maggot free so maybe we can rinse it out and use it once again, but either way, they owe us $2.50 for the wasted sticker.

And they wonder why trash collectors sometimes get a bad rap.