The Wrath of God

Okay, so there I was belting out one song after another on my guitar when...There I was belting out two songs on my guitar, my entire repertoire, when...There I was struggling to play a clean note on my guitar when it was time to take Maria our cleaning lady to town. This being Friday, lunch at a restaurant was to follow. For reasons I can only attribute to a vengeful god, it began to rain so hard as we prepared to leave, I suspected that one of us had done something really bad and now we were truly in for it. I wasn't wrong. We opted to take the car furthest from our door and I led the way carrying a bag of trash that needed disposal. (We take our trash to assorted dumping places downtown.) Because I was wearing a rain jacket and hat and because I am a manly man who does manly man things, I strolled fearlessly through the downpour to unlock the car's doors so that all who followed could have easy access to the dry interior. All went well until I started fumbling with the keys, dropped the trash bag and my hat flew off, this last permitting cold rain to screech down the back of my neck. Inspired into rapid action by the chill, I recovered the trash, tracked down my hat and made it to the other side of the car, the driver's side. It was there on the floor of the back seat that I would put the trash so that I would have easy and quick access to it when I pulled alongside one of the several dumpsters we have no authorization to use. The trash, a tool in the hand of the vengeful god, took the moment in which I was placing it in the car to drop its contents out its bottom and onto the car's floor. Plastic bags, I am told, can take a million years to deteriorate. Ours had managed the trick in seconds. Clearly a powerful force was at work. Undaunted, well okay, a little daunted, I hollered to Maria, Woowoo Charly and RTGFKAR who had all entered the car from the other side, not to worry I would go get another bag. I sloshed back through shoe top high puddles to the house, backed off the dogs who were thrilled to see me because I was gone SO LONG and snagged another trash bag. Upon returning to the car, Maria, who was closest, and I attempted to lift the old bag and place it into the new one. As we did so, a disgusting greenish brown pile of ooze that was part dog shit, part decaying food scraps and part fissionable material that Iran would like to get its hand on, slid from the first bag, avoided the second and made its way onto the car floor. Let me just say here so that all who are younger than I will understand, it was totally gross. Totally. Back out into the rain I ventured, now unmindful of all but the need to clean that mess up before like Alien blood it ate its way through the car to freedom. The dogs were once again thrilled to see me. "Down! Off! Down Down Off! and like that. I grabbed the roll of paper towels off the rack and returned to the car. The cleanup had me near to gagging but was ultimately successful. As most of it was done with my body outside the vehicle, I was now soaked, as they say, and I might add, quite accurately, to the bone. I climbed at long last behind the wheel, shut the car door and dried my hands on my pants. As I turned the key in the ignition the day became instantly brighter. The sun had chosen that instant to peer from the clouds and the rain stopped so abruptly it was as if someone had shut off a heavenly valve. I sat there a long moment and wondered. What in the world had I done?