There's no place like home

Remember the other day when we had that crazy rain/wind storm? I was at work at the flower shop/warehouse and the sound of the rain pounding down on the huge tin roof where I was in the back was insane! I was cleaning out the flowers that had gotten old and moldy - yes, one of the glamorous bits of my job - and pretty soon I had about three pretty big garbages full of rotten flowers that needed to be thrown away. In this tsunami? Right.
  The dumpster is outside and down the back of the parking lot a little way. Let me also paint you a picture of what it's like to dump garbages into this big dumpster. I know I'm not unusually tall, but I didn't think I was that short until the first day that I tried to flip open the lid on the dumpster - awkward.

 I was hopping and jumping all over the place trying to find an angle that I could get enough leverage to swing the lid all the way up and over. In my defense, the lid is heavier than it looks. To top it off, the windows to the front office are not far from where I was and in my self-consciously failing attempts to open the dang dumpster, I was just positive that the three or four ladies at work were probably all just standing inside watching me and laughing. But surely they wouldn't really, right?
  Anyway, that was clear back in August when I started this job and after one or two trips to the dumpster, I finally wizened up and realized that if I stood on the push cart that I put the garbages on, I was just tall enough to get the lid over. Whew! That was the best discovery I'd made in a while. So even though I still have a bit of a reach, it is much easier that way.
  Ok - so back to the storm this week.
 I had three really full garbages and was wondering how long I'd have to wait for the down pour to stop before I could make the trek out to the dumpster. Luckily it wasn't too long and I headed out. I got them dumped without any problems and got back to work inside.
  A few hours later they needed dumped again and it was nice and sunny outside so I didn't think I'd have any problems. But as I made the 2nd trip out, the wind was crazy and was blowing things all over the place.  I was slightly worried that I wouldn't be able to get the lid open if the wind was pushing too hard, but it was fine.
  I got all three garbage cans loaded onto the flat cart and was turning it to head back into the warehouse. As I turned it, the wind caught up with me and those empty cans and away they went! I hurried and grabbed onto the one right in front of me, but the those other two rascally things took off across the parking lot. I thought maybe they'd just roll for a second and then stop. Nope.
  So with one can in hand, I took off after the other rebels.

Have you ever watched someone try to catch a chicken? That was me, only instead of stupid chickens, it was stupid garbage cans that are 10 times the size of a chicken. I knew for sure now that my boss and all the other ladies in the office had probably pulled up their chairs to the windows and were sitting back enjoying the show. My hair and the hood of my jacket were being blown from here to next week, and the cans just tumbled along.
  After what seemed like endless hours of embarrassing hustle - which was really probably less than a minute, I caught them and stacked them up in each other. I headed back to the cart and then casually headed back to the building. No one probably really saw it, I'm just already so self-conscious that I usually feel out of place, but I'd like to think that most of the time it's all in my head - if only.
  Back in the warehouse there wasn't a soul in sight and the more I relived what had just happened, I started laughing to myself. Let's be honest, I would have been laughing if I'd been the witness instead of the victim.
  After a few minutes of washing buckets and not seeing any of my co-workers, my boss came around the corner totally wide eyed and said, "That was an awesome little save you had back there!"
 I KNEW it, they were watching! Ugh!!
  The next day the word had spread and people laughed appreciatively as they heard about it. As if I wasn't awkward enough..... Oh well, goodness knows I've spent my fair share of laughing at people's harmless mishaps throughout my life.
   Nothing wrong with a little humbling, right? :)