I walk down the stairs of my house to the kitchen. Fill the electric kettle with water and fire it up.
I drink herbal tea.
Every.
Morning.
I rip open the package of tea, put its contents in the mug, reach to throw out the package’s refuse, open the garbage, and that’s when I see it.
An empty bag of Crab Rangoon.
Now, with zero contex, this seems like a perfectly normal situation. Garbage WOULD go in the can, with all the OTHER garbage. I threw this garbage out last night. I opened the refrigerator, took out the Crab Rangoon, smelled it, and acted appropriately. I threw out 4 Crab Rangoons inside their bag.
This bag though, this bag that lay in front of me now, is quite empty. Not a crumb.
As I pull the empty bag from the trash, I can only imagine what my face must look like as my eyes roll back into my head, as I picture what type of MONSTER reaches into the garbage, makes a conscious decision to pull out the bag of discarded rangoon, out of it’s supposed final resting place, maybe they smell it, maybe they don’t care if it’s bad, they’re already considering eating OUT OF THE GARBAGE, and eats it. Eats it like it was a fate meant to be. Man, bonded with Chinese food takeout.
I have my guesses of who it could be. I live with 3 adult bachelors. That’s a forgivable act in our living environment. You can’t shame a human for what puts gas in his tank. You can’t tell grown men, with varied and shaky pasts that they can’t indulge themselves on food matter that a street person would consider a “good score”. We all have our own skeletons, best to bury them deeply until they destroy us, even if others find the aftermath occasional trips to their local refuse container. Does this trash bin assailant have an issue? He probably has many. This ‘eating out of the trash’ is just one they haven’t invented a pill for yet. Hopefully it’s on it’s way.