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Jack is going to love this story...
Today I volunteered to do compost duty. Being sort of a hippie commune, this place does its fair share to replenish the earth by composting organic waste. This means after every meal all the unused food goes into five gallon buckets, which are then transported to a composting site. That's the simple version. Here's what really happens...
The food is put into five gallon buckets, but these buckets are not emptied regularly. Nope, they sit in an alley for several weeks at a time until they are all filled and ready to be emptied. It's constantly hot and humid here in Louisiana and those buckets sit filled to the brim, sealed with plastic lids, brewing and stewing until some sap like me says he'll empty them. So I loaded them in the truck and took them a few blocks away to Butch's house. Butch is a resident who learned how to compost in the army and has a whole composting setup in his backyard, right in the heart of the 9th Ward. It stinks, but of course nobody complains to Butch because he always carries a gun. My guess is he carries two; the one you can see, and one you can't. I poured the 75 gallons of stench in Butch's backyard, smiling at him the whole time and itching to get the hell out of there.
I returned to the center to finish my job which meant I needed to spray out each bucket with hot water. Easy enough. So as I sat in the alley, spraying out incredibly stinky buckets with incredibly hot water in 97 degree heat I closed my eyes, sweated and hoped for the best. Toward the end of this job I was getting terribly annoyed with the flies buzzing around my head and landing on my arms, but I worked diligently to finish the task. I sprayed the last bucket and set it down, eager to swat the damn flies off my arms because at this point they were driving me insane. However, after a quick glance downward I realized flies were not the issue. Nope, not flies; maggots. Both arms, covered with crawling white maggots. I calmly sprayed myself from head to toe with the hose, got in my car, drove down the street to the nearest bar and drank three beers very, very quickly.
Enjoy this story now because I will never speak of it again. Ever.
Today I volunteered to do compost duty. Being sort of a hippie commune, this place does its fair share to replenish the earth by composting organic waste. This means after every meal all the unused food goes into five gallon buckets, which are then transported to a composting site. That's the simple version. Here's what really happens...
The food is put into five gallon buckets, but these buckets are not emptied regularly. Nope, they sit in an alley for several weeks at a time until they are all filled and ready to be emptied. It's constantly hot and humid here in Louisiana and those buckets sit filled to the brim, sealed with plastic lids, brewing and stewing until some sap like me says he'll empty them. So I loaded them in the truck and took them a few blocks away to Butch's house. Butch is a resident who learned how to compost in the army and has a whole composting setup in his backyard, right in the heart of the 9th Ward. It stinks, but of course nobody complains to Butch because he always carries a gun. My guess is he carries two; the one you can see, and one you can't. I poured the 75 gallons of stench in Butch's backyard, smiling at him the whole time and itching to get the hell out of there.
I returned to the center to finish my job which meant I needed to spray out each bucket with hot water. Easy enough. So as I sat in the alley, spraying out incredibly stinky buckets with incredibly hot water in 97 degree heat I closed my eyes, sweated and hoped for the best. Toward the end of this job I was getting terribly annoyed with the flies buzzing around my head and landing on my arms, but I worked diligently to finish the task. I sprayed the last bucket and set it down, eager to swat the damn flies off my arms because at this point they were driving me insane. However, after a quick glance downward I realized flies were not the issue. Nope, not flies; maggots. Both arms, covered with crawling white maggots. I calmly sprayed myself from head to toe with the hose, got in my car, drove down the street to the nearest bar and drank three beers very, very quickly.
Enjoy this story now because I will never speak of it again. Ever.
posted by Charlie Varley at Tuesday, July 17, 2007
1 Comments:
this morning i had to deal with ants in the dog food. thanks for putting things in perspective for me, little brother. my life is easy and i am thankful.
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