Ragtime Boogie

In the world of allergens, there are two that don't make Mark's list. Oddly enough cigarette smoke is one, and dogs are the other. Everything else is free to set off an attack that knows no boundaries. It doesn't matter the season, time of day, weather, environmental circumstance, Mark is an easy target for stuffiness, watery-eyes, and a faucet of a nose.

This physical challenge can be heartbreaking to see, and I know it is no picnic for him to experience. The inability to taste, smell, breathe, it's a real fun-crusher. And the constant, constant, CONSTANT use of tp and paper towels. I know how irritating it is when I have a cold for a couple of days and have to blow my poor raw nose with great frequency, I can't imagine having to do that everyday, all year long. I feel bad for him. I do.

What I don't feel bad about is the finding of the tp and paper towels in random spots. By the bed. In the bed. On the kitchen counter. Inside the washer, or even better, the dryer. There's nothing like finding one of these things in a load of warm, clean clothes.

Most recently, I decided to do some car clean-up. Amongst the thousands of stale goldfish crackers, sippy cups full of what used to be milk, but now resembles cottage cheese gone bad, dried diaper wipes, broken crayons, empty juice boxes, guess what else I found? That's right.

The birds and squirrels got hand fulls of cracker bits. I considered salvaging the sippy cups, but I couldn't bare opening the lid. In my attempt to do what's right, everything else was disposed of in their proper bins, garbage or recycling. Or so I thought.

Today the allure of the baby jogger centered around the fact that it was trash/recycling pick-up day in our neighborhood. We were able to see them hard at work multiple times on our run. And just as we arrived back home and the kiddies were set free, the recycling truck pulled up in front of our house. Both Heath and Stella watched the truck and its driver empty our bins of cereal boxes and seltzer water bottles and salsa jars and milk jugs. When our bins were empty, we waved good-bye and said, Thank you, and Heath eagerly grabbed the bins to put them back by our house.

As soon as he picked one up, he looked inside and said, Oh no! He looked down the street at the truck, now two houses away. The driver jumped into the cab of the truck, revved it up, and started to move to the next house.

Heath took off running down the street, one hand waving, dragging the red bin behind him with the other hand, screaming, Wait! Wait! You forgot Daddy's boogie rags!