It's In The Bag

Our weekend at the beach ended the way I always like a vacation to end, which is to say it involved a car chase and a narrow escape from an angry pursuer.

And, of course, a big bag of trash.

My wife's sister and her husband are on an Alaskan cruise, and so they offered us their house, which is just a couple of miles from the Delaware beaches, for the weekend. Because we didn't want to put trash in their trash can that would sit for a couple of weeks until they returned, we brought one of those giant lawn and leaf bags with us. and used that to collect all of our trash for the weekend.

Sunday comes, and my wife suggests that we drop the bag of trash in a dumpster behind a nearby grocery store on our way out of town. Sounds like a good idea to me, so with the car packed we head to the store, with the bag jammed between the dashboard and me in the passenger seat.

We pull around the back of the grocery store, and there sit three dumpsters and one sign "Not for personal trash. $500 fine." Out of the six of us in the car, I'm the only one who notices the sign. I don't say anything, but get out of the car and look around. No one in sight (we're behind the building). I gently put the bag of trash next to the dumpster, turn to get back in the car, and

"Hey!" The yell is much too deep to be my wife and children. I jump back in the car. "Go! Go!"

Around the corner roars a large, older blue pickup truck, from which a large man is yelling. He is pissed.

My wife starts driving out of the parking lot, the truck with the yelling man in hot pursuit behind us. Who is this guy? Why does he care? I have no idea.

We race to the parking lot exit, ready to make a left turn. There are no cars coming from the right, but a long line coming from the left. My wife hesitates. The blue pickup is behind us, and the yelling man is opening the door to get out.

I yell for my wife to go, and she races out of the lot. The man closes his door, but it's too late: the line of cars has blocked him from turning left out of the lot to follow us. My wife drives off, with all of us peering anxiously out of the back window of our van. Is he after us? Have we given him the slip?

As we're watching, I tell the kids about the sign threatening a $500 fine. Our 13-year-old son: "Did it say anything about going to jail?"

That opens the floodgate to questions from all four children. "Do you think he's still following us?" "Can he follow us home?" "Will he call the police?" "Will they come after us?"

I assured them that the Delaware police were unlikely to follow us to Maryland to pursue the crime of illegal dumping, though I don't even know that what we did was illegal. (In retrospect, legal or not, it wasn't a very nice thing to do, and we should have found some other spot for our trash bag.)

Anyway, if you don't see any posts from me for 30-60 days, you'll know why.