A mighty wind
On the day after Christmas I collected all the wrapping paper from the presents we opened in two large plastic bags and put them out with the rest of the trash for our Monday morning pickup. We had more trash than usual, and the trash can was full, so I placed the two bags, stuffed with the wrappings, along the curb with sundry cardboard boxes.
It was a very windy night, the kind of winter wind that makes a house sound like it is moaning from the fatigue of sheltering the family within. I awoke several times in the night aware of the extreme gusts, and I wondered about the status of the trash. In the morning when I went out to get the newspaper, I expected that the loose bags and boxes would be scattered about, but I was not prepared for what really happened.
The boxes had indeed blown up the street a short distance, but that was not the worst of it. The two bags filled with wrapping paper had somehow come untied. The plastic bags themselves were lying flat in the gutter, snagged in the wheels of the overturned trash can. They were empty. I looked up and down the street and could see brightly colored wads of Christmas paper everywhere: in my neighbors’ trees; stuck in their shrubbery; attached to their light poles, rain gutters, garage doors, mail boxes.
For a moment I stood there not knowing what to do. I was still in my pajamas. I had on only a light jacket and it was quite cold. I was in my bedroom slippers, for God's sake. It occurred to me that I could just forget about this mess and go back inside. Each of my neighbor's would have a few pieces of trash to pick up. Big deal. That's what community is all about, right? Chipping in to help each other out. Then I thought about all those name tags attached to the Christmas paper, the ones filled out "From Mom and Dad to Conor; Cynde to Jack; Jack to Cynde." My neighbors could pinpoint the source of their yard debris to us! And what about those name tags with the affectionate pet names that husbands and wives share in secret: “To my Snookums from your Pillsbury doughboy.” I was screwed.
Resigned to my unfortunate fate, I walked around the neighborhood picking up the bits and pieces of wrapping paper wherever I could find them. I wandered into my neighbors’ yards and onto their driveways, the cold morning air working its way up into areas of my anatomy that are accustomed to better-regulated climate control. In all, I gathered up about a bag’s worth of wrapping paper.
That means that there is still another bag’s worth of paper floating around out there. The good news is that beyond about a square block from my house nobody knows us by name.
It’s interesting to think about where our errant Christmas paper has gone and where it might show up next. Tonight, while I was watching the evening news, the traffic reporter switched to a camera shot of the Washington beltway, a good ten miles from our house. Suddenly, a small swath of paper blew up onto a windshield of a car and stuck there momentarily. It looked like Christmas paper – shiny blue with silver snowflakes – similar to the style that we used to wrap presents this year. The driver turned on his wipers and the paper was airborne again, heading northbound toward Rockville, Maryland and who knows where after that.
If you happen to find some Christmas paper with a tag that reads “to my fluffy bunny from the big, bad wabbit hunter,” please, just wad it up and throw it in the trash. Better yet, burn it in the fireplace. Not a word to anyone. Much appreciated.
10:13:58 PM  Stories
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