Sunday, December 28, 2008

Second Hand News

Steve sent an email to our newspaper on Friday night. The gist of it was that we hadn't received our paper in a week...Saturday afternoon guess what? They brought us a week's worth of papers. Great. Who wants a week's worth of papers? We've had to subsist on television and internet for a week - so we pretty much have heard the highlights already. The only thing to do was to read a weeks worth of comics and then recycle the papers.

Did I mention we haven't had garbage or recycling picked up for weeks? Both cans are already overfull and we've started storing the extra bags in the garage. I feel a bit like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout....


Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would not take the garbage out! She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans, Candy the yams and spice the hams, And though her daddy would scream and shout, She simply would not take the garbage out.

And so it piled up to the ceilings: Coffee grounds, potato peelings, Brown bananas, rotten peas, Chunks of sour cottage cheese. It filled the can, it covered the floor, It cracked the window and blocked the door With bacon rinds and chicken bones, Drippy ends of ice cream cones, Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel, Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal, Pizza crusts and withered greens, Soggy beans and tangerines, Crusts of black burned buttered toast, Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . .

The garbage rolled on down the hall, It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . . Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, Globs of gooey bubble gum, Cellophane from green baloney, Rubbery blubbery macaroni, Peanut butter, caked and dry, Curdled milk and crusts of pie, Moldy melons, dried-up mustard, Eggshells mixed with lemon custard, Cold french fried and rancid meat, Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat. At last the garbage reached so high That it finally touched the sky.

And all the neighbors moved away, And none of her friends would come to play. And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said, "OK, I'll take the garbage out!" But then, of course, it was too late. . . The garbage reached across the state, From New York to the Golden Gate. And there, in the garbage she did hate, Poor Sarah met an awful fate, That I cannot now relate Because the hour is much too late. But children, remember Sarah Stout And always take the garbage out!
-Shel Silverstein

4 comments:

Keira said...

Good call on the song non-link.

I think this is my favorite Silverstein poem just for mentioning yellow globs of Cream of Wheat...

Suzanne said...

I always feel bad if I have so much garbage that it doesn't fit in the can..no matter how long it's been since pickup. I do feel pretty good about myself when the recycling can is brimming.

Good thing it's cold and you can't smell the extra garbage.

Debbie said...

amen, sister.

osrevad said...

It was like, the last day before trash day
My place was getting kinda nas-tay
Even though the garbage I knew would reek
I thought that I could leave it for one more week
Then, I'm takin'
Birthday cake 'n'
Chili and greasy old bacon
Throw it all on top of the mess I been makin'
Wife's so mad, she starts to shakin'
Leaky bag, 'n' now that girl is gaggin'
She's naggin'
"I need you to get that stuff off the kitchen floor"
"Is that too much to ask you for?"
But I see no reason why
Can't let a few more weeks go by
And now garbage is piled up high
And buddy, you should see the flies
I said...

There's something rotten here
You better hold your nose
Boy, there's a lot in here
And every day it grows

Look at all this garbage that I keep generating
I sit around all day and watch it biodegrading
Bet there's a hundred health codes that I'm violating
Even my dog passed out and needed resuscitating
You won't believe it, take a whiff of that aroma
It's sure to put you in a coma
It's so messy, can't find my toenail clippers
It's so bad, the roaches are wearing slippers
Warm, sweaty clothes piled up in this joint
Stand up by themselves at this point
It's so filthy, now baby, I can't lie
I wipe my feet before I go outside
I wonder what crawled in here and died
Walking 'round barefoot, I'd be terrified

There's something rotten here
You better hold your nose
Look what we got in here
Let's watch it decompose

Some Lysol, some Comet
I got a mop with your name on it
Careful not to breathe the fumes
Garbage piles are going all the way to the bathroom
Turn into toxic waste sometime this afternoon
Better get a Hazmat suit and a push broom