//------------------------------//
// Dumpster Diving - Part 2 
// Story: The Great and Powerful Trash Can 
// by Tired Old Man 
//------------------------------//


Journal Entry # 268




        You’re not going to believe this. I’m serious this time, you would think I was nuts for doing this.

        I ate from my plunger this morning. 

Yep, it’s true. I even cleaned the plunger and everything before I ate out of it.

        I wish I had some rational explanation for this. “All of my bowls vanished last night due to a shady ‘bowl thief’” sounds more reasonable than what I’m about to tell you.

        I did it to help send off that strange blue pony that showed up in the trash can last night. Yes, it’s a pony. No, don’t ask me why it’s blue. I’ve long since abandoned reason by acknowledging her existence. Her name is Trixie, by the way. 

        Anyway, I sent Trixie back to her world by plunging her...again. She wanted me to prove that it was clean...so I ate some cereal out of it. Lucky Charms, in fact. Funny, I didn’t exactly feel lucky eating out of a toilet declogger, but I digress.

        She was also none too happy about being plunged, even after I proved it was clean. However, I didn’t exactly hear her complaining once I started. She couldn’t speak...or if she did, I couldn’t hear her thanks to the airtight seal the plunger makes. Silence sure is golden when it comes to annoying voices, I suppose.

        She also wants her hat back. You know, the same hat from before. Turns out I tossed it into my trash this morning and promptly forgot that I should have kept it. She threatened me with some weird magic that I wish I could explain to you, but I didn’t have the slightest understanding of how it worked at all...except that it stems from her horn.

        ...I forgot to mention that she’s a unicorn. And also the magician hat is hers. Her stage name is the “Great and Powerful” Trixie.

        Yes, she is every bit as annoying as you would believe her to be. You might actually like her, if given enough time. You were always very good at making friends.

        Sadly, I’m not as patient as you are, and right now it’s costing me. I’m waiting on Mike to give me a call when the garbage truck holding Trixie’s hat arrives. It’s been a little over twenty minutes since that call, and I’m getting antsy. 

I figured I might as well update you on what was going on, just in case you really did think I was nuts the last time I wrote about this. I have a feeling I’m going to be updating you frequently so long as this Trixie pony keeps bothering me.

...and until I get her hat back, I don’t think she’ll stop pestering me.


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        It was almost a quarter-till-eight when the phone rang. I answered it immediately.

        “Mike?”

        “Truck’s just stopped by, Ian. I let ‘em know to separate this truck’s trash from the rest, but you better hurry over here. I can’t stall them forever, got it?”

        “Already on the move...and Mike? Thanks, buddy.”

        “Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. You know I can get fired for this.”

        “Lips are sealed as usual, Mike.”

        I hung up. In my spare time, I had already gotten fully dressed and prepared to head off to Mike’s workplace. I even packed some disposable gloves. I did NOT feel like handling any more trash or cleaning products with my bare hands after eating from that plunger.

        My gaze fell upon the small trash can before I opened the door. Trixie had not returned yet. I began to wonder if it was a good idea to leave her behind like this...and promptly realized that was a bad idea. She could use her magic powers to completely destroy my house...and I couldn’t afford repairs like THAT right now.

        However, the alternative solution proposed a different challenge entirely. Placating an angry pony in a car on the way to the local dump didn’t exactly sound like an exciting task. But I didn’t have much of a choice. A chance at a wrecked car versus a guaranteed destroyed home? It’s almost as if my decision had been made for me.

        ...well, there was another alternative. Just dump my trash can elsewhere. Toss it in a river far away from me, far away from my home, and just buy a new one. What are the odds that pony would visit me through a different trash can, anyway?

        Then I remembered how helpless she was. If I tossed my can in a river, that would drown her...and that felt like drowning a puppy. That did NOT sound like an enjoyable prospect to me.

        I sighed. “Looks like I’m taking the can with me.”

I wrapped my arm around the trash can and held it steady, its opening facing the same direction I was. I reached for the key bowl next to the front door with my free hand, pulling out the keys to my car before I headed out the door.

And there it was, in all its pristine and wondrous glory: my car. 

“Who am I kidding? The thing’s a clunker of a car!”

Okay, maybe it had a few dents and scratches in it (and the horn sounds like something you’d hear from a clown car), but most cars in the city like this are lucky enough to just get scratches and dents. I happen to have good fortune as far as that’s concerned.

Well, maybe that will change today. The passenger I’m taking along might not like cars...or technology. I’m not sure how technologically advanced the world is where Trixie comes from, but something tells me I’m about to find out.

I pressed the unlock button on the transmitter attached to my car keys, and I heard the ‘click’ of the doors unlocking as I approached the driver’s seat. I opened the door and set the trash can in the front passenger seat. I buckled the trash can in as well. 

I considered putting the can in the back...but she might roll around back there. The seatbelts for the back seats aren’t that reliable, and I’d rather not have pony vomit decorating the floorboard of my car.

After doing a quick mirror check (and one last look to see if Trixie had come back, she didn’t), I started up the car and began my drive over to the city’s local disposal facility.

It doesn’t matter what day it is here in the city. Traffic just sucks for every second of every minute of every hour here. Honking horns make up most of the ambient noise driving along the roads. The rest of the ambience usually involve drivers yelling, pedestrians yelling, or both. I learned to tune most of it out within a month, although it still doesn’t help that most of the drivers here are...unkind, to put it very mildly. By which I mean their driving skills are as graceful as a drunk bull in a china shop.

Like I said, one is usually very lucky to get away with nicks and scratches when everyone else treats their vehicles like oversized bumper-cars.

I had spent about ten minutes in traffic at this point, and I could have made much better time walking to the disposal facility. However, I had a trash can in tow, and walking along the streets holding that is more than enough to catch the eye of one too many pedestrians here. I didn’t feel like drawing that much attention to myself. Odds are I would also catch the eye of a pickpocket.

“Or a mugger. Maybe even another crazy person carrying around a trash can and claims to speak with a talking donkey!”

Thankfully, before my thoughts had wandered any further than that, I had heard a popping sound come from the trash can. A few silver locks of hair sticking out from the top of the can told me that Trixie had returned.

“Ian, what’s going on? Why is your roof closer than it was before?”

“That’s because we’re not in my house anymore. We’re in my car.”

“Car? What is that? Trixie demands you tell her!”

“It’s a vehicle, sort of like...a horse-drawn carriage, except it doesn’t need the horses to pull it. You know, with wheels and-”

“WHEELS?!” Trixie exclaimed.

I tilted my head. “Yes, wheels. Why, does something bother you about wheels, Trixie?”

“Trixie hates wheels. They are untrustworthy!”

The unfiltered venom in her tone had me begin to question if I was the crazy one after all. What sort of thing could have happened for her to hate wheels? What did wheels do to her?

The car lurched to the right side instantly as two of the tires popped.

“What the?!”

We were less than two blocks away from the disposal facility when not one, but two of my tires decided to give out. I pulled over to the right side of the road and got out of the car to inspect the damage.

Both tires had blown out, but I didn’t find the object responsible for shredding my tires. It must have been a broken bottle on the road or something like it that decided to play havoc with my wheels. I was prepared for one flat tire, but not two, and certainly not at the same time.

I opened the passenger-side door and stuck my head over the trash can to look down at Trixie.

“Hey, Trixie. Guess what?”

“What?”

“I hate wheels too.”