The Solitary, Inconvenient Dustbin.

Yes, another story about something someone sees every morning.
Unfortunately, mine's rather dull and nothing unusual happens in this one. Just a bunch of observations, little inferences and the daily do.

There's this dustbin that sits outside this old woman's house. When I mean outside, it's actually quite far away from "outside". It's pretty much off the pavement and a foot onto the road. And when I say house, I mean bungalow-that's-almost-the-size-of-a-mansion kind of house. Oddly, no one moves this solitary, inconvenient dustbin, except the garbagemen, but it always ends up right back where it was by the time I leave for work.

So this dustbin sits halfway onto the road, making sure that not more than one car passes this house at a time. If two cars pass, which is very hard unless they're hatchbacks or they're not cars, it's a really tight squeeze and sends one onto the opposite pavement and the other scrapes the dustbin. You might be patient enough to get out of the car and move it yourself, but no one really has the time anymore. I think she really enjoys this, the old woman.

I try not to look at the house when I pass by, but it's not easy to avoid it because she's always peeking out of one window or the other.
Yes that's another thing - it's never the same window.

I always wonder why she won't move it closer to her house. I've seen her painfully hobbling out of her ridiculously unused driveway, dumping one tiny little bag into that massive dustbin (I have no idea how she opens the lid, her hands make matchsticks look big) and then hobbling right back in. Would be good for her if it were closer too, right? I don't think you need exercise at that age, do you?

But all I can do is wonder, and tell you the stories I've heard.
Here's a bunch:
- she talks to the dustbin
- she put it there to watch us struggle with our cars, for entertainment
- she moves it on sundays when we don't work
- she doesn't have a family, leave her alone
- someone LIVES in that house?!
- I want to buy that house
And my favourite one that a little boy told me,
- my daddy told me her husband lives in the dustbin and she feeds him
at night from a small bag because he didn't listen to her and forgot
to buy the groceries

So yes, there this massive, abandoned, lonely, outcast dustbin sits, one foot away from its spot, one foot to close to the middle of the road. And there this little, fragile, nosey, bored, old woman sits in the house watching me as I wait for the five cars on the other side to clear the dustbin. Once I pass it, she goes back into the house.

Probably to change the window she's looking out of.

I think next, I'm going to find out what she's got on the other side
of the house.

Any thoughts?