I wonder who the first person was who said the words, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Maybe some guy who went completely bald at 30. A hungry breakfast eater who found an empty box of his favourite Chewy Chunks cereal in the recycling bin. An owner of 50,000 shares in a company that just declared bankruptcy.
Years ago, we had a nice new car stolen from our driveway in the middle of the night and wrecked by the thieves. I also wonder who first used the words “write off” as we heard them used to describe a vehicle we really liked.
And while the loss of the car was a blow, what bothered me almost more was the idea that strangers had been walking around on our property in the middle of the night. It took a long time to shake that feeling.
But here’s a funny thing. I can get myself worked up to the point of around the bend over little things while major events such as the loss of a job I can handle with comparative calmness.
And so it was my mind was blown when I went outside this morning to see that the lid to one of the two big plastic garbage cans I had put out last night for pickup by the city was gone. I knew on some level how important those lids were to me, but not till that moment, did I realize just how much value I had attached to them. I didn’t know if it would be possible to buy a new lid. I suspected it would not be.
It was a very windy day in our city today. It was almost gale-like in intensity. So I spent too much time walking up and down our street looking for our lid. During my search, I discovered lids of every size, shape and colour dislodged and lying around but none that belonged at our place. Always in search of our town’s Citizen of the Year Award which, amazingly I have never won, I picked up several neighbours’ lids and reattached them to their cans.
But our lid was gone and there was only one conclusion that made any sense at that point.
There is a garbage can lid thief roaming the area and our lid was just too gorgeous not to steal, with its black handle, gentle contours and slightly rough black surface. Even someone who had never stolen a thing in his life could almost be forgiven for wanting to give himself the five-finger discount on our lid.
This bothered me one whole hell of a lot.
So an hour later, I wandered our section of town once again, this time crossing to the other side of the street for a new perspective. I even took to peering into people’s backyards to see if a thief had tucked it away behind his house.
The wind was fierce, blowing me west and almost preventing me entirely from walking east.
But to reward me, I guess, for replacing my neighbours’ lids, the Universe blessed me by showing me where our garbage can lid had wound up. There it was, lying in the middle of a four-lane main street. Almost as though it had been blown almost an entire city block to where it came to rest.
With only one truck on the road, I dashed out onto the street to rescue my treasure. You would have done the same.
What has me puzzled, however, was why the person who stole our lid dropped it onto the pavement as he ran across the street. Sadly, for him, he probably didn’t really know what he had till it was gone.
His effort was a total write off.
©2024 Jim Hagarty
