I Like Trash

 “I LIKE TRASH. I LIKE TRASH””

I think that is a Sesame Street song or maybe Michael Bublé. I’m not sure.

I’m not willing to go so far as to say that I ‘like’ trash. It’s trash. It’s part of life – the part we throw away. It’s the stuff I roll down to the curb on Wednesday nights. But that is in Terre Haute. Here in Texas the trash has its own “je ne sais quoi” or whatever the Tex-Mex version of that might be.

With about seven thousand family members in town for Christmas the trash can fills up quickly. Most of what goes is of the usual, mundane, variety: week-old leftovers, gnawed upon rib bones, mystery side dishes that nobody ate (wisely), and scores of yucky paper plates and Solo cups. No pies, cakes, cobblers or cheesecakes ever make it into the trash. You would have a better chance of finding the Ark of the Covenant in our trash than an uneaten dessert.

That is why the trash this morning proved … disturbingly strange. Let me explain.

I’ve never been hunting. I grew up two blocks from a steel mill. The closest I ever got to actually hunting was taking a pellet gun down behind the mill to shoot at rats the size of a SmartCar.

But somebody has been hunting or out driving through the countryside at night. It wasn’t me. I would remember, I hope. It wasn’t my 94 year-old mother-in-law. I hope, but you never know. But somebody on the guest list has been hunting. How do I know for sure?

Because, this morning, sitting in the trash can in the kitchen was an ear from a deer – an ear. Just one ear, nothing more. God knows where the rest of the animal might be. He, or she, wasn’t in the bathroom waste basket – or in the ash tray in the mini-van. No hoofs were visible.

I’m not terribly squeamish.  I mean, I’ve seen enough of my own blood over the years to be intestinally secure. But we all know some people who, if they had discovered an ear in their trash, would have hit the floor like an overcooked baked potato, but I’m jiggy with it.

I know that in bullfighting the successful matador is often awarded El Toro’s ears as a reward. I don’t think they do that in hunting, so I doubt that the ear was a prize. If it was the recipient was not impressed and dumped it in the kitchen trash.

I just hope that the ear was not part of a scavenger hunt contest ‘cause I ain’t playing!

When the family gathers again at feeding time this evening I’m going to keep my eyes open to see if anybody seems to be looking for something that they may have dropped, or for anybody bringing in a venison soufflé.