Our first house was 2400 square feet on six and a half acres. We bought the house when I was pregnant with our first child. The house was just 7 miles from my parents who lived on 65 acres that had been my grandparents “summer home.” (Although throughout my entire life they never used it, my family did.)
We lived in that first house for twelve and a half years and I could tell you countless stories; however, this story is specifically about the garbage fairies.
Let me lay down some background. (And set up for another story on another day) My church (the Episcopal church, had a simple communion service on Thursday morning at 7:00am. Eventhough we lived in the country, the girls were in daycare in Middletown and I worked at our Ace Hardware store in Middletown.
As I said earlier, my parents lived just a few miles from us in the country. The thing was they lived about half a mile off the highway and they didn’t have garbage pick up. What they did have was me and my garbage pick up.
It started simply on Thursday mornings with a bag or two of trash left outside my car. At that point, my dad was opening the hardware store. I would stay a church and visit a little longer and then take the girls to daycare and then go to work. Conveniently, Friday was my trash day. So dad would leave a bag or two of trash by my car when he left to open the store. When the girls and I went to the car, miraculously there had appeared a bag or two of garbage-it obviously had been the garbage fairy. That was the only reasonable explanation.
As the girls got older and mom and dad began to more seriously raise sheep, there was a little more trash. The garbage fairies were discovered for who they really were but the name stuck. Mom and dad would now come over to the house on Thursday night (almost always just before bedtime-ugh) and drop off their trash. They (dad in particular but mom enjoyed it too) reveled in stopping by, dropping off the trash, coming into the house for a minute to see the girls and get them wound up just a bit and then leaving.
When we sold our house and moved into Middletown we bought my grandparent’s house. One trash day morning I was taking the trash out and the garbage men were at our neighbor’s house. The neighbors had one cardboard box in their recycling bin. The worker picked up the box and brought it to our house and put it in our recycle bin! I told him he had made my day and I quickly told him about the garbage fairies. I’m sure he thought I was crazy but it was satisfying none the less.
My parents are both now long gone but my kids still love and remember the garbage fairies.
My Patio 