Time to switch to decaf

The other day coming into work I had sort of an "odd" beginning to my day. From where I park my truck in our lot here, there is a pretty good distance to our building. I pass a few dumpsters on the way during that walk to the office door. And it's usually still pretty "not light" when I get here. Sometimes on my way past those dumpsters I drop off some trash from the truck too. Tis very handy and I enjoy my "system", falling into a mindless groove that helps me stave off the coming pressures of the day.

So setting the stage like that, here we go.

On a bleak and semi-dark morning, I was carrying on like normal; parked the truck, gathered a few items from it that should be thrown away, picked up my lunch bag, gloves, etc and began my trek to the door.

Since I had some disposables with me, as mentioned, I swung by the dumpsters in order to rid myself of said oddities. Having my left hand full and my right hand nearly empty, I'm a great multi-tasker when I'm carrying things, I decided to flip up the lid of the dumpster and quickly deposit my unwanted items while the lid briefly pauses at the apex of its travels. I'd simply dart my hand in and get it back out before the lid fell.

Now remember it's still semi dark. I'm alone in this parking lot. Surrounding by very old and very tall traincar manufacturing buildings. Its historic yet creepy at times. This scene could be the battleground for anything from a late night horror flick to a drive-by shooting by transexual nazi eskimos.

So I flip up the lid of the dumpster and a large shape begins to slowly loom out of the silent, murky depths. Quicky I threw in my trash, while simultaneously stepping back from my would be intimidator and potential evil villian. A dark force against all that would wish the world well had clearly, over the weekend, decided to set up his HQ in this blue trash container. His plan, although nefarious, was clear to me in an instant. He intended to eliminate me.

But he picked on the wrong geek.

Now keep in mind that all of this happened in the time it takes a plastic dumpster lid to be flipped up and for it to fall back down. Additionally during this time, I finally got a good look at my attacker and realized that large helium balloons probably aren't that dangerous after all and dropping back into a battle stance was probably a bit overkill.

God I'm glad nobody saw me.

So with nervous energy I traversed the parking lot, going to my job with the assurance that evil for the day, had been thwarted. I also laughed my butt off at myself all the way to the building. It's another thing I'm glad no one saw. A lone nerd, NOT on his cell phone, cackling maniacally as he entered a building with a large black bag. Might make people nervous you understand.

When I left that night to head home I strode straight to that dumpster, lifted the lid, and stabbed that freaking balloon twice with my pocket knife.

He had it coming.