It was a cool, rainy day and I was feeling the effects of a cold. In our car port, our garbage pail was so full that the lid would not stay closed. We had been playing raccoon roulette (gambling raccoons wouldn't come and empty garbage all over) for a few days so I slung the heavy, stinky garbage bag into the back of my pickup truck along with 3 or 4 blue boxes of sorted recyclables, and drove to the dump. It was just the miserable task that the miserable day and my miserable nose called for.
Arriving at the dumping depot and glad that it had at least stopped raining, I hoisted the garbage bag into the facility's compactor and then backed my truck up to recycling pile. Emptying my blue boxes, I took my paper to the paper bin, metal to the metal bin, glass and tin to the glass and tin bins and then I tossed the rest in the "household" pile.
While doing so I noticed a family of rats (I assume they were related) scurrying amidst the remnants of my city's consumerism. Rats in garbage certainly fit my mood. And then it happened.
Suddenly, sunshine broke through the clouds and I heard a choir singing and booming out glorious Christmas music. Really!
My grey, rat-infested mood was immediately conquered and vanquished as notes and chords and voices proclaimed the birth of Jesus, God's gift to us to save us from our sins and ourselves.
I soon discovered the source of this divine melody was the little shed where everyone pays for dropping off their garbage. There, on the counter, was an old boom-box and some Christmas CDs that had been rescued by the garbage attendants...
