Letter Number Five

I spent the weekend finishing with the garage.  Future Me was right; my wife was amazed.  In fact, she was suspicious for several days.  I think she was expecting me to ask for a big favor.  Every time I’d approach her about something, she’d immediately drop her head, furrow her brow and wait for me to drop the bomb.  I could see her mentally prepare to roll her eyes every time.  It was pretty gratifying to then ask if she needed help carrying laundry up from the basement or if she wanted me to fill her gas tank while I was out, and watch her blink a surprised expression onto her face, smile and say yes, or no, or who the hell are you, what have you done with my husband, and can you keep him there?

So, by Sunday afternoon I was done.  We ate dinner, put the girls to bed, then started to watch the Oscars.  At about 8:45, I sat up on the couch and told my wife I’d forgotten to pick up my prescription and needed to run out and get it.  She told me she’d let me know what I’d missed and I walked out the door.

Kohl’s always closes at 6pm on Sundays.  So I thought 8:45 was pretty safe.  I drove around to the back of the store, pulled up to the dumpster, fully expecting it would be padlocked shut.  It wasn’t.  I killed my headlights and engine, got out.  I looked around, saw no one and threw open the dumpster lid, shined my flashlight down inside.  Lots of boxes, plastic shipping wrap, a couple of bags of paper and there, underneath it all, mannequin limbs, torsos, and buttocks.  Jesus, they must have restocked the whole store.  I looked around again, saw no one, put the little flashlight in my teeth and lifted myself up onto the edge, tilted slowly forward and fell face-first inside, legs kicking uselessly.  I rolled over, found my footing, turned on the light and started throwing the crotch-sections of mannequins out of the dumpster.  I’d gotten about 6 and stood up with the last two, my head just above the metal lip, when the purple, blue and red of police strobes popped alight.  I turned to look towards my car and was blinded by a sudden spotlight.  I dropped instinctively back down, swearing under my breath.

There was the quick “WHOOP, WHOOP,” of the siren when they use it like a warning, then a voice over a mega-phone: “Come on out, son, we’ve got the dumpster surrounded.  Hands where we can see ‘em.” 

Fuck, I thought, how the hell am I going to explain this to Jen?  I stood up, raised my hands, dropped the last two crotches I was still holding and turned towards the light.  “Come on out, slow now.”  I put my hands on the lip, hoisted myself up again, thought too late about how I’d ended up before, tilted slowly forward, legs flailing, and flipped forward out of the dumpster, completing the flip and hitting the ground on my ass.  There was the immediate sound of laughter, from three or four places around me, followed immediately by the sound of several strange POP! sounds happening in quick succession.  After a stunned second with my hand up to shield my eyes from the spotlight, I knew what had happened.  I screamed: “God damn it!”  I stood and walked to my car, turned off the spot that had been clamped to my driver’s window, and saw by the light of the bubble strobes still turning on my car’s roof the blue envelope stuck under my windshield wiper.

Letter Number Five:

Well, that explains the multiple voices laughing at me as I got out of the dumpster, doesn’t it?  Jesus, as if there weren’t enough of me already.  And am I really supposed to look forward to all this hazing I’m apparently going to subject my younger selves to?  Man.  I got one thing right, at least: my future self is a Dick.