Two Industrial Garbage Cans

There are two industrial garbage cans behind the apartment building across the street from my office.  One of them is half open, which I imagine makes the whole back lot smell awful.  The back lot includes the pool area.

The pool is usually filled with hot guys and hot babes.  I assume they are hot.  From this distance they all look like tiny plastic dolls.  Usually you can tell by their basic shape if they are male or female, but sometimes it’s ambiguous.  “Is that a girl with no top?”  “Is that a guy with a top?”

There is a couple at the pool having an affair.  They dive into the pool and come up for air near each other.  They do not kiss, but you can see hands touching forbidden areas under the clear water.  The touching is mutual.  They float around each other for a minute or two, both frequently looking back toward the building.  Abruptly the petting ends and the woman returns to her chair.  Moments later a man I assume is the woman's husband comes to the pool and sits next to the woman.  Casually the other man gets up and goes to his chair on the other side of the pool.

After a half hour of cancering up her front side, the woman rolls over to cancer up her back.  The husband looks disgruntled because his chair is already in the shade of the apartment building. He thinks about moving over to the chairs on the other side of his wife, but before he can commit two older ladies come out and sit there.  They have no intention of swimming or tanning.  They are covered in loose beach cover ups and large floppy hats.

The old ladies crack open their books and lay them face down on their laps.  They will not read today.  They are having a heated discussion.  They both agree.  Their floppy hats nod and shake in unison.  They are agitated, but they are agitated among like minds, which makes all agitations more bearable.  The husband two seats over says something to the old ladies and their floppy hats bob up and down happily and their old, heavy bosoms jiggle.  He slaps his knee like an old timey southerner.

The husband, receiving no warmth, dives into the pool for exercise.

One of the old bitties points up to my office.  Perhaps I am paranoid, but if not my office, then she is certainly pointing toward my office building.  The floppy hats shake with disdain.

The slightly fatter one is telling the less fat one how I sit up here and do nothing.  How I am a drain on the tax payer.  How I deserve to be fired.

I turn my chair around and go back to work.  It is two days before the end of the quarter.  In two days I will be a little bee, humming from one computer to the next; making honey for the higher ups to eat and take credit for.  Doing the reports the federal government requires so that our agency can get a stupid amount of money to do a job in which I believe, but the commissioner and his ilk do not.  Our job is important.  How can you want to be commissioner over an agency you don’t believe in?

My job is important, though I don’t love it.  Especially today.  Today I have nothing to do.  I’ve sent three separate letters to my boss about three separate issues regarding three separate projects.  Every project he assigned me as a priority, one, two and three.  Every issue must be resolved before I can continue.  Every letter about said issue has gone unanswered.  This is not why I don’t love my job.  I simply want to be doing a different job.  A particular job.  Not a nebulous, pretend fantasy job.

I look back out the window.  The old bitties are still pointing up at me.  Shaking their heads.  They talk about how they are better than me, and would be so even if we were in the same generation, mine or theirs.  One of them spits on the ground at my uselessness.

Actually, she doesn’t spit.  Rich southern women do not spit.  Except that they do.  I’ve seen it.  It is a most surreal experience; to see the very apex of human dignity lower her head nearer the ground and expectorate.  It is so out of reality that I would believe it if scientists were to measure the occurrence and declare that the fabric of the universe had been torn.  If time travel is ever accomplished it will be because some ingenious person has exploited this happening.

The wind picks up and blows the other industrial garbage can open.  A small plastic grocery bag floats into the air and blows into the pool area.  Everyone around the pool sits up.  The smell has come to swim.  The less fat of the old bitties quickly puts her towel to her face, covering her nose.  The husband says something and the old ladies’ floppy hats nod in agreement.

The husband leaves the pool area for the two industrial garbage cans.  Coincidentally the other man jumps into the pool.  The lady watches him.  She wants to join him, but the two older ladies are too present.

Out by the garbage cans the husband is trying to close the lids.  He closes one and the wind opens the other.  He scratches his head and shouts something over the pool wall.  The old ladies have had enough of the smell.  They close their books and go back inside the apartment complex.

The industrial garbage cans cannot keep themselves closed.  The husband is doing everything he can.  The lady jumps into the pool with the man.  They embrace and kiss and probably more.  It’s difficult to say for certain from this high up.

Outside the husband fights a losing battle with two industrial garbage cans.