A soggy tribute

It’s been raining all night. This will be a great relief to firefighters, not to mention the rest of us, except for one thing. Last night I put my present for the garbage man out again.

I already put it out once before I went away, carefully wrapped in a plastic shopping bag and tied to the bin with a red ribbon. This wasn't because I was thinking about the weather, but because I thought late night revellers or the early morning dog walkers might nick it. 

Unfortunately, the garbage man didn’t see it either and as I was coming back laden with shopping, I saw the bin being hoisted up by the mechanical arm and the present fly off onto the footpath. I picked it up and ran after the truck, but he managed to stay just ahead of me, bumping and banging those bins just as fast as he could, no doubt looking for an early knock off. He was a young bloke and he never once looked back. No wonder the bins look the way they do – bits missing, lids broken off.

I briefly considered giving it to my elusive new neighbours with whom I share a driveway (I am sure they are in a witness protection program as I seldom see them, they hardly ever speak and they move in mysterious ways) but I wasn’t sure how much damage had been done and by then I was rushing to catch a plane, so it just ended up on the bookshelf.

I found it again yesterday just as I was about to put the bin out. It didn’t look too bad when I took the plastic bag off. Its cheery Christmas wrapping was still intact and it only had one ding, so I taped it to the lid, minus the plastic bag so he would be sure to see it. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop here first anymore and there’s been a lot of rain. I expect those shortbreads will be quite soggy by the time he gets them, but I do want him to know that I thought of him.  

Two hours later....

He's here! I can hear him doing his noisy dance, but he doesn't seem to be stopping or even slowing down. Perhaps the present has gone straight into the hopper this time. Or maybe he's just not partial to macadamia nut shortbread. We used to put out beer. Too bad.

 I will probably never get priority service again, but at least I won’t be woken up at 5 a.m. on Wednesday mornings.

In unrelated news.....

One of several excellent birthday cards

Really liked the greeting inside and will do my best to live up to it!

The back of this card is quite interesting too. Apart from being made in China by Hallmark  and giving the various prices for Aus. and N.Z. plus their respective GSTs, it says that the paper comes from "responsible sources" and that it is Post Office Preferred. Even more interesting is the "CAUTION: Product contains removable objects and should not be eaten by children under three." A further indication of how complex and international the world has become.