Dinos in the Dumps

My son’s behavior in school has been pretty distracting over these last two weeks. A short way to describe it is “purposefully uncooperative”. To find something that will motivate him to behave has been one of our biggest challenges.

Well, I had this great idea. Alex has 20 dinosaurs he just loves. One day, I put 10 in a garbage bag, making a big production out of it, and threw them out in the garage. I told him he could earn them back if he’s good in school. Well, he got a glowing report one day, so I gave him lots of kisses and high fives and told him he’d get his dinosaurs back when we got home.

So everyone is all happy in the car awaiting this glorious reunion and we pull up into the garage and I notice the bag is gone. I’m thinking my husband Jon must have put it somewhere. Then, to my horror, I remember that it’s garbage day.

I got the kids inside the house and in a panic yelled up to Jon, “Where are the dinosaurs?” Jon yells back, “Ah…where were they?” I said, “In a garbage bag in the…!” It took but a second for me to realize Jon threw them out with the rest of the trash that we always put just outside the garage door.

I ran to check the garbage cans on the curb and sure enough, the truck had already come and gone.

I dragged myself back in the house to confess to Alex that his dinos are in the dumps. He insisted I call the dumps so they can find them. In my crazed emotional state of insane hopefulness, I phoned Waste Management. ”Ah, yes ma'am, we’ll check with dispatch and see if they spot a tall white kitchen garbage bag that looks like there are dinosaurs inside.” I said, “Maybe their tails punched through?”

Alex reminds me of the blunder on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. He has drawn 10 individual pictures of them and walks around with a photo of his lost friends for comfort. He told me they are visiting far off places like Sonoma, Santa Cruz and Monterey. I’ve been to Target, Wal-Mart and finally Toys-R-Us to replace the things. I got a hold of the lady who gave them to us. She said she found them at the Galt Flea Market. That’s my last shot.

I got a phone call from Waste Management a few days later. “Those dinosaurs are mixed in with pretty much all of Lodi’s trash then to land fill,” the recorded message goes on, “and for safety reasons, really there’s no way we can dig through the trash.” Oh brother, they must think I’m absolutely insane. How embarrassing!