Dumpster-Diving, Brina-style,
or
Did I really just DO that?!

I live in a luxury apartment building, on the top floor. We have a "utilities room" down the hall from us which is also known as the "trash room." Upon entering, you approach a little door in the wall which leads into a trash chute. The chute goes four floors down to the underground parking garage trash dumpster. This is how you dispose of your garbage. Kind of like a laundry chute in an old house.

Every time I take my garbage bag to the trash room, I have my keys in hand. And every time I go through this process, I think about how awful it would be if I...

dropped my apartment keys down the chute along with my garbage...

which I did tonight!

Yup.

OOOPS!

The situation was further complicated by the fact that I had locked my apartment door behind me when I left, and A.J. was with his dad, and I did not have my cell phone on me, and there was a pork roast in the oven...

Did I panic? Did I freak?

NO! I took the dog and we went down in the elevator to the garage. I RAN to the trash room down there and assessed the situation. The dumpster had been emptied earlier today, so there was hardly anything in it. I found two bricks in there and piled them atop each other, stood on them, and peered over the edge of the big dumpster. I could clearly see my bag of garbage and my keys right on top of the bag, but they were far below me.

I couldn't quite reach the keys. I didn't freak out, no, not me! I got another brick and made a little stepping-stone staircase for myself, climbed up carefully, then I used all of my wonderful long yoga-arm extension and reached way down deep into the dumpster and gracefully grasped my keys without falling in head-first!

And that's the Brina dumpster-dive story. With happy ending.

Are you proud of me for not freaking out?!

(I am.)