On the Way Home on 18 April, 2011

On the way home today I was extremely excitable, for reasons I probably shouldn’t talk about too much here (hint: Ours is the Fury). Therefore, I wasn’t really paying attention to much of anything and wasn’t expecting to spot anything blogworthy. Then, as I was walking down the final street home, I did happen to notice something.

An older guy (mid- to late-30s) that I had previously spotted walking behind me had overtaken me due to his timely crossing of the street, whereas I, distracted jaywalker that I was, fell behind while waiting for the next gap in traffic. But this wasn’t what drew my attention. What drew my attention was that as we came down to the last third of my walk home, he arrived at his house somewhere down the street.

A woman with a baby in her arms was waiting for him, and they greeted him at the door with a hug and a kiss, and he had the biggest smile on his face. Then, as I watched with a weird, warm-tingle-in-the-heart sort of smile on my face, the woman and baby went back into the house while he, have just arrived home, dragged two rubbish bins out to the street for the next day’s garbage pickup, then walked into the house.

That, believe it or not, is what prompted this post. A man who’d just gotten home from work and who was likely tired was dragging the bins out while his (presumed) wife, who was home before him, just walks back into the house. Now, I’m not criticizing, but it made me wonder: why did I notice that? Why did I interpret the situation that way?

It’s more than likely that they have an agreement around the bins. Hell, perhaps their whole family system revolves around the timely putting of the bins on the sidewalk the night before garbage collection day. Maybe it was just his turn. Maybe he builds it into his daily routine, where it’s just part of the day before he gets to relax at home. Maybe the bins were too heavy that day because they’d fed their baby too much fiber in its baby food so there were more diapers in there than usual. Shit, maybe mum didn’t want to put the baby down because otherwise it would scream and cry and maybe daddy didn’t want to come home to that.

What is curious to me is why I made note of that situation. I didn’t interpret it as weird, bad or good, it was just something I noticed. Why?

Could it be that my partner and I frequently forget to put the bins out because we try to remember to do it in the morning before we head to work, but we inevitably forget because our morning routines get in the way? Could it be that I would have thought that the person who was at home earlier would do it so that the person arriving home later wouldn’t have to and could just relax? Could it be that I felt guilty that forgetting to put the bins out was somehow a frequent problem in our own household?

Regardless of the answers to those questions, when I got home today, I put the bins out on the street before I walked in the house to type this post.