trash can of shame

I have a white plastic garbage can in my garage just outside the back door. It’s where I throw my shame. All of the crap I collect in my car during the days – gum wrapper, abandoned goldfish crackers, random receipts, empty mint containers. Okay, sometimes it’s weeks, maybe months worth of crap goes in this garbage can. And my fast food wrappers. Yep. It’s true. I may be a half-marathoner and a triathlete (haha), a Cooking Light subscriber who actually likes vegetables and fruit, and a relatively healthy person but I’ll admit that I likes me a little Chik-Fil-A. 

About once every week or so, I save cows by eating more chik’n. I do love the 3D billboards and will admit they influenced my original dining behavior. Now I think they put some addictive substance in the chicken, like Coke does, so you just have to have it. Plus, Chik-Fil-A has bendy straws and waffle fries. I mean, come on. I am also hooked on McDonald’s diet coke. I don’t know if the rumors are true that they have a secret formula but it wouldn’t shock me. The line there is also much faster than Starbucks and you can get a super big Diet Coke for a buck when a venti latte is like 5 (plus I have to tip – you really should, poor baristas stuck at the drive up make waaay less in tips) and since I’m usually late for work and sorta broke, that kind of makes a difference. And if I’ve managed to run out of time for a healthy, homemade breakfast, I can get an Egg McMuffin which is on the Zone diet so it must be okay for me and my eternal diet, right? And I can eat it on the way to work! But then…I have to hide the evidence. Yellow wrappers, empty Chik-Fil-A box of nuggets, 32 oz drink cups. So where do they go? The trash can of shame of course.

And then there’s the drinking. If we drink during the week (which, let’s face it, does happen) and kill a bottle of wine, where does the bottle go? Not in the kitchen trash where the nanny can see we’ve been boozing it up on a weeknight. No, no, no.  If there are a few beers downed in an evening, what to do with the cans? They can’t go in the recycling bin with the magazines and cardboard organic pasta boxes. Nope. Out to the trash can of shame they go. Usually with some kind of camouflage on top…like a paper bag or a newspaper. Oh, the trash can of shame. I’m starting to think I might put some of my too-tight jeans and trashy romance novels in there too. Just for good measure.