This Rescue Mission Brought to You By Jillian Michaels and Waste Management

Friday night, Lee and I had planned to go see a movie (Shutter Island! It was good!) so in preparation I spent the whole day locked in my apartment getting work done. And I was successful! If success is defined as doing about 4 hours of work and 8 hours of sitting around and wasting time. By the end of the day, I was cranky and stir-crazy and in a generally foul mood. I had offered to cook dinner before we went to the movie, so at around 6pm I gave up on homework and headed out to the grocery store.

On the way out the door I grabbed the trash so I could take it out without having to make two trips. It's efficient strategies like that which have helped me to conserve energy and remain the curvy woman that I am today. (It's OK, Jillian Michaels is helping me now.) At any rate, I grabbed the trash and my purse, locked the door, locked my purse in the car, and then stomped across the parking lot to throw the trash out. I hurled both of the trash bags into the dumpster and heard a satisfying clanking sound when they landed in the mostly-empty container. And then I noticed that my hands felt empty. Overly empty. NO KEYS kind of empty.

I stood and stared dumbfounded into the dumpster for a minute. Surely this wasn't happening. I looked around on the ground. No keys. Dammit! This was obviously a test. The universe saw my crankiness and raised the stakes. Someone clearly wanted to see me throw a shit fit, alone, in the parking lot. I resolved to disappoint the universe by remaining calm, and took a deep breath. OK. I looked into the dumpster again. It was very dirty, much like a dumpster. It was fairly empty, and in my crankiness I had heaved the trash bags pretty far out of reach. The opening wasn't very big, and it was high up, about chest-level. Oddly, the dumpster did not seem to be designed for people to climb into it.

No problem. I would just go in my apartment and get something to stand on. I walked toward my apartment. My... locked apartment. The key to which was in the dumpster. Alright, regroup! I'd just have to call Lee to come help me strategize. I just needed to go grab my phone from the car. The... locked car. The key to which was in the dumpster. Son of a bitch! No no, just focus. Maybe there's someone in the apartment office! I stomped across the apartment complex, not panicking in the least, to find a... locked door. The keys to which were in the dumpster. Figuratively speaking.

Fine. Fine! I would just live in the parking lot of my apartment complex, forever and ever.

QUICK FACT ABOUT ME: I would much rather live in a parking lot until I died than have to go knock on a stranger's door and ask them to help me climb into a dumpster to fish out my keys.

I walked back to the dumpster and began to try to psych it out with the force of my mental rage. Alright dumpster, it's just me and you now. And you are about to be in a WORLD OF PAIN, young man! I didn't know what I meant, but I felt galvanized.

I reassessed the situation. The opening in the dumpster was high enough that I couldn't just hurl myself in, but there was a little bit of a lip right below the opening that I might be able to get my foot on in order to leverage myself in. I looked around to try to find a place to grab onto the dumpster. The dirty, filthy, dumpster, which had surely never ever been washed with soap and water in all the many years it had been in service. The filthy dumpster, which was no doubt exponentially more filthy on the inside, where I was going.

Fuck it. It was this, or living in the parking lot, and it looked like it was going to rain. So I hoisted my pants up, grabbed the edges of the - ICK! - dumpster, walked my feet up the side until they were on the lip, and pulled myself into and through the opening. I landed inside the dumpster and briefly felt like a champion. Hooray! It's Friday night and I'm in a giant metal box full of strangers' refuse!

I spotted my keys, grabbed them out of a pool of wetness I didn't want to think too much about, and flung them out of the opening and onto the pavement outside. Excellent! The keys had been liberated!

I looked out of the opening at my keys on the ground, filled with pride, and suddenly realized that I wasn't sure that I could get out. There was no helpful lip on the inside of the dumpster. Oh God, WHAT IF I COULDN'T GET OUT?!? I would have to stand there, in the dumpster, in the dark, staring out of the small opening like some kind of demented puppet show, waiting for deliverance. At that moment, I honestly couldn't decide what was more terrifying: having to live in the dumpster forever, or having to wait to be discovered and helped out by one of my neighbors. SPOILER! I am currently writing this blog post from inside the dumpster.

Anyway, I crossed myself and prayed to Jillian Michaels for the strength to climb out, in the name of the 30 Day Shred, amen. I can't remember exactly how I pulled myself out, but I have bruises on my shins now. For the sake of the narrative, let's just say that I exploded out of that dumpster like the Hulk, leaving only a pile of debris in my wake.

Once I was out, I looked around and confirmed that no one had witnessed my heroic efforts, and was briefly a little disappointed that there was no one there to be impressed. Then I brushed myself off, grabbed my keys, and ran for my apartment before the dumpster could grab anything else off of me. Once I got inside I aggressively washed my hands and keys, checked my body for Hepatitis, and decided to carry on with my life.

And then Lee and I ate chicken parmesan and saw a wonderful movie and got a little drunk and the end, hooray.