I Bought New Tongs

Yesterday afternoon I had to buy new tongs.

My old tongs were old and ugly, but still serviceable. Unfortunately I had no choice but to throw them into the large dumpster where our household trash goes to be picked up by the sanitation workers each Monday. You see, I had to use the old tongs to extract a piece of jewelry from the dumpster.

Can you spot my little fairy pendant nestled there between the dark green bag and the white one? In the photo above it appears as if I could just reach in and pluck the pendant out with my fingers, but actually, it was almost at the very bottom of the dirty dumpster:

How did it get there, you might ask. I’d spent quite a bit of time cleaning the cats’ litter boxes yesterday morning. I dumped the litter into a large green bag and set it, along with our regular kitchen trash, in the garage so I could deposit them both in the big dumpster when I left to run errands later in the day. I do this on a regular basis with no problem.

Yesterday, though, as I heaved the bag into the dumpster the pendant was caught between me and the bag and was ripped from its cord. The momentum of the bag prevented me from being able to stop mid-heave and I watched helplessly as the necklace tumbled into the nasty depths of the dumpster.

I was dressed to go into town, so I wasn’t about to climb into the dumpster. Instead I ran into the kitchen, retrieved the tongs, went back out side and…still couldn’t reach the pendant. Against my better judgement I pulled a chair over to stand on so I could better lean into the dumpster without touching the sides. Amazingly I was able to reach the pendant and pulled it to safety:

(Note: these particular tongs were never used for cooking….)

Voila! Knowing I’d never use those tongs again, I tossed them into the dumpster. As they fell, I realized with chagrin that the companion piece to my pendant must also be in the dumpster. As were my tongs. Sigh. There was nothing for me to do but carefully tilt the dumpster on its side and rake the rest of the necklace out.

I managed to do so without dirtying my hands and soon had the Celtic symbol I’d bought in Ireland safely in hand. Soon I’ll have Studly help me put it all back together again, but for now I’m going to let everything rest. And sanitize. At least I’ve got new tongs.

Peace, people.

Author: nananoyz

I'm a semi-retired crazy person with one husband and two cats. View all posts by nananoyz