The Dresser that Wasn't

The other day, I was taking out the garbage. I was walking along, humming to myself, until I reached the dumpster. Our enormous green dumpster is enclosed by a tall iron gate with two doors that swing outwards. A normal person opens one or both, then tosses the garbage in. Not I.

For whatever reason, either because I'm lazy or because I like to make dull things interesting, I instead swing the garbage bag back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until it has the momentum to swing up over the gate and into the dumpster.

Hey, it's entertaining. And anything that makes taking out the garbage entertaining is a plus in my world.

As this takes a bit of momentum, skill, and daring, I sometimes wonder if fellow renters watch me from their windows to see if I'll actually make it this time. I hope they don't - I look a bit silly. And, uh, lazy. Why doesn't she just open the gate and toss it in there like a normal person?

Anyway, on this particular morning when I arrived at the dumpster, I saw a dresser in it. A six-drawer, slightly worn dresser. And I thought. And I thought. And I thought.

We don't have a dresser, yet, see. Not yet. And I'd rather have a slightly worn one for free than a new one for three hundred dollars.

Besides. This one was cute. It had little raised feet and brown finished veneer and it was lovely.

Ultimately, I chucked my garbage and walked away...only to be possessed by the thought of the dresser that wasn't to be had. I tossed and turned that night, planning down to the minutest detail how to extricate it from the garbage at a time when the least amount of people would see me.

I thought about what I was going to wear (old jeans and a long-sleeved shirt), where I was going to buy heavy gloves (Wal-mart. Durh.), and how I was going to get the dresser over the edge of the five foot dumpster and onto the road without getting scratched. (Don't laugh. I can plan the heck out of anything, real or imagined. It's like a superpower...but more, um, excessive. On the upside, it makes me an awesome birthday/party/event planner. )

I woke up this morning ready to get to work, and made my way down to the dumpster.

Apparently, the garbage in California gets taken out on Mondays.

That's right. My dresser was nowhere to be seen. Nowhere.

I'm sure, as my husband said, that it simply wasn't mean to be, and that God has some amazing dresser of awesomeness for us at Ashley's Furniture or Ikea.

But until then, we're dresser-less. By the grace of God.

I can live with that.