Bag of Meat?

Why is it that tales, which are usually the funniest to read or hear, are usually the ones that involve some activity of human self depreciation? Is it that we love to hear about something that is so discomforting or vile that we relish in reading about the misfortune of other peoples lives? Perhaps...personally, I just find it damn funny reading about the (ultimately) stupid things we all do, partially knowing what will happen, but doing it anyways. I have been a self appointed victim to these as well (as I'm sure most of my regular readers will attest to), and seeing that my blog has been mostly doom and gloom lately, I figure it's time to actually do what my banner says I was going to do and relate one of those classic anecdotes that I love to tell. It will probably lose some of the impact knowing that you can't see my hands flapping around wildly, and my face pulling all sorts of odd grimaces, but we'll take a run at it none the less.

In a past life I wasn't always the responsible and most fore-thinking person you read about here. This particular anecdote is a spectacular example of that.

Without further adieu, I give you the tale of the bag of meat.

Everyone loves moving. It's a simple fact. Without the facetiousness, moving can be (and usually is) one of those times when no matter how well you get along with your significant other, housemate, etc., you will be ready to tear their throat out with your bare hands. It's not usually because of anything in particular you or the other parties have done, but simply because it is a high stress situation when you can't find your favorite pair of jeans because it's packed in a box labeled silverware. 'Tis the nature of the beast.

Many years ago we decided to move out of the condo we were currently living in (which I secretly never wanted to leave I might add...that may have added to the whole stress thing), and into a monstrosity of a house in a neighboring town. It was a good idea to move, so I was told, so I played along and towed the line. To be perfectly honest, as long as I have a bed to sleep in and a place to plug in the 438 computers I am running for no reason what so ever, I really don't care where I live. Anyways, we decided to do the smart thing and hire movers this time around. Initially it seemed a great idea, and in all actuality it was, except when you are paying some one to do everything, certain functions seem to get left behind. We had decided that since I was working obscene hours at work, it would be my ex-wife’s responsibility to do the majority of the packing, since she wasn't working. It seemed like a good agreement and all the parties involved felt ok about it. Thus begins the packing and moving saga. The "meat" of this story actually occurs after the move.

During the packing process there were some pretty simple rules. If it was to be moved to the new house, I would take all the packed boxes downstairs to the basement where the movers could easily grab them, and all the garbage would be put in the garage for me to dispose of later. It was one of those moves where there was some significant overlap where both houses were still available, so I figured I'd get all the garbage out once we got settled in at the new place. Seemed logical, or so I thought.

After everything was over at the new house, I adventured over to the old place with my Volvo wagon (yes, I owned a station wagon, keep your comments to yourself), grabbing Newtie to give me a hand with loading it up and getting everything off to the dump, or the first convenient dumpster we found. I had taken stock on moving day and there were only a few bags of garbage. I figured it would take one trip, and we'd be in the clear. I backed up the car, opened the garage door, and this is where everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

Upon opening the door, I noticed the bundle of cardboard and about four bags of garbage. Of the four bags, there was one very large black bag staring ominously at me. There was also a faint sickly sweet smell of decay coming from the garage. This is the point when you should ask yourself if anything good is ever in an oversized, opaque, black bag. Being males, we grabbed all the smaller stuff first while steeling up to the large mystery sack. There was still the slight (and I must say very slight) stench in the air, but I figured it was just some food that went out in the garbage and was lingering behind as is sometimes the case. After getting all of the smaller stuff in my car I had decided that the black bag was now lurking. You could feel how much it didn't want to be moved, and because of these exact premonitions, I decided it was time to go get it.

Now would be a good time to put down that sandwich if you are eating lunch...

I went over and grabbed the tie on the bag and lifted, and oh my god, I've just opened Pandora’s box of evil. I had the distinct feeling I was trying to lift a 200 pound bag of fetid jello. There was a stench now filling the room that was reminiscent of a cross between road kill and a sewage processing plant. My eyes were beginning to tear up from the pure unadulterated stink of the ages, and I could hear Newtie gagging across the garage. Out of my peripheral vision I could see him making a beeline for the open air, and decided "F this, I'm out of here."

We were both outside the garage gulping for fresh air when the realization of what was in the bag struck me. The ex had vaguely mentioned that she may have thrown out something from in the freezer. Now, when I hear something like that, I'm picturing a small ziplock of chicken, or maybe those last 3 hotdog buns from the new years party last year, but not a 200 pound bag filled with meat, or at least what was meat when it went down there.

What to do, what to do. It had to come out of there, but damnit, I didn't want to touch it. Newtie was a very delicate shade of pea soup green, so I knew I couldn't use my power of persuasion to get him to move it, and where the hell do we put it? I didn't want a stinking bag of disease in the back of my car, but as needs matched demands that's where it was destined to go.

I looked over at Newtie through my tear filled eyes, and all he was doing was looking at me saying "What the hell is that dude? What the hell?"

Once I got some real air back in my lungs and the tearing to stop I decided it was time to take care of this evil monstrosity. It seemed much happier when it wasn't trying to be moved. When it was laying still all the stinky bits must have settled back into the jello and was masking (some) of the smell.

I realize at this point I am personifying the bag of meat, but it was like something alive and awake. It clearly was bitter about the whole life thing, and really pissed at me for waking it up.

I looked around the garage and found some plastic sheeting up on one of the shelves. Let’s start there. I took the plastic down and laid it out in the back of my car so the beast would have something to rest on. Next I grabbed a roll of duct tape and taped the shit out of the top around the tie. I ran back outside to get some fresh winter air and see how Newtie was faring. Some of the green was gone from around the gills and he was starting to breathe again. I figured now was as good as ever to breach the subject.

"Ok buddy, cowboy up. We've got us a big bag of rotten meat to wrangle into the back of my car. My advice is to take a deep breath now, and if you have to breathe, do it through your mouth."

That last bit of advice also came back to haunt me with a vengeance...

We ran back into the garage like a couple of soldiers storming a base and went to pick up the great beast. I couldn't manhandle it alone. Sure, when the meat was still frozen I'm sure I might have been able to do it, but because it was now filled with liquid, it wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world to handle.

Each of us picked a side to lift it up by and got somewhat of a handle on it. The putrefaction factor was defiantly working overtime. The beast was angry and letting us know about it. It was about this time that I needed to take a breath. Manhandling a 200 pound bag of jellified meat is hard work. Remembering the advice I gave to Newtie I took a breath through my mouth. What a colossal mistake that was. I could still smell it even though I was breathing through my mouth, and to add insult to injury I could taste it as well. This is about the time when I starting retching. As soon as I started that, Newtie thought it looked like a fun game and starting as well. Between the combination of retching and the sheer weight of the bag it managed to slip out of our grasp and hit the garage floor with the most unsatisfying, mail sack thud. Now the beast was really pissed and let out a monstrous glut of stench as a revenge tactic. Instantly both Newtie and I were running for the open winter air again, retching the entire way.

Once we had some sense of composure we got back on the horse and took another run at it. It was looming malevolently on the floor of the garage seemingly daring us to try it again. Not to wuss out, we did just that. We each took a large breath of air and went back in to the trench, steeled up and ready to go, and damned if we didn't manage to wrestle the beast into the back of my car. I slammed the rear door shut and ran for the air. This was a step based activity. There was a definite need for air in-between each of the grunt sessions. This is when the realization of what was to come next began to sink in. I now had the beast in the back of my nicely sealed warm car. Inevitably we would be getting in said car. We took one last look around the garage, which was almost tolerable to breathe in now, noticed the distinct little trail the beast left behind on the floor as a memento of what once was, and decided not to postpone the inevitable any longer.

I took one last deep breath of fresh air and opened the door. The scent assaulted me like a punch in the face, but I managed to get in. Poor Newtie was looking at me from outside the car with a look somewhere in between fear and revulsion. After waving my arms around like a wild man he joined me in the wagon of death.

The funny thing about breathing is you have to do it occasionally or you will die.

I think we made it out of my condo parking area before Newtie took his first breath. Instantly he was back to pea soup green and retching again. Now, when you are in any kind of situation like this, at some point the reality of what you are doing kicks in and you realize how absurd it must be. Seeing Newtie wretch away beside me I starting giggling. Now giggling and trying to hold your breath would be an amazing feat if it were possible, but I learned that it is not. I took a breath and the stench overcame me. Now I was retching and laughing at the same time. To make matters worse, Newtie came up with the idea that he should just open up the window and stick his head out, but because this was the dead of winter, it happened to be very, very cold out. He would stick his head out for a minute until the tears on his face would begin to freeze, and then come back into the heat where he would start to wretch again. Since it seemed like a fun thing to do, I decided to play the game as well. So, now we have a black Volvo wagon driving along at about 90 KM/h (because, sure as shit, I wanted the beast out of my car), filled with rotted meat, two guys popping their head in and out of the windows, retching, crying, and laughing hysterically.

There are a few times in my life where I would like to have moments captured on film and this was one of them. All I could think of was "This must be what it is like to be a whack-a-mole game."

And, just because this is my luck we are talking about here, we got to the dump, which was thankfully just around the corner from my house, pulled up to the gate, and noticed the closed sign. FFS! What the hell am I going to do with the beast now? Set it free to roam the wilderness and prey on unsuspecting picnickers?

I looked over at Newtie and he gave me this look of "Don't stop. Just keep driving so we can get wind flowing back through the car."

I was sorely tempted just to open the tailgate of my car and leave the beast sitting on the dumps front step like an abandoned child, but with all the high tech gizmos and cameras they had around the place I though that may have been a bad idea, so I put the car in drive and peeled out.

Now Newtie and I, still retching and giggling had to decide what to do with the beast. There were fanciful thoughts of dumping it in a lake a la gangster style, or leaving it on the side of a country road, and even finding a public park with those community garbage cans to put it in. Eureka! Not public garbage can, but what about a dumpster behind the office buildings where we work? Perfect...We'll just relocate the beast into one of those. It will be happy there. It can make a new home and eventually find a Mrs. Beast to settle down with.

Now we had a destination. I floored my little station wagon and pushed it for all that it was worth. After breaking about 30 driving laws I pulled up to the dumpsters, put my car in park and got the hell out of it, breathing pure air for the first time in about 15 minutes. As I caught my breath I glanced over at the dumpsters and noticed an alarming sight. Both of them were full to the brim and overflowing. DAMNIT, DAMNIT, DAMNIT! What the hell? What did I do to deserve this (again, keep your opinions to yourself)?

I looked over at Newtie and knew that there was no way I was going to be able to get him back in my car for any extended period of time without adding to the stench in my car. Soon those wretches would become more liquid, and then I would have the beast in the back and its new offspring via Newtie in the front. I looked around at random looking for anything, anywhere to get rid of it, and lo and behold, swathed in a ray of golden light, was a dumpster behind the abandoned building next to ours. Sweet and merciful god, let there be room in this one.

After bribing Newtie with promises of many pints at the pub I got him into the car for what I hoped was the last 500 foot drive with the beast. At this point there wasn't much laughing going on any more. The humor had died and we just wanted to be free of this hulking stinking thing in my car. We drove over to the dumpster next door (where the beast may still be lurking for all I know) and took a look. We both thought it was empty, but it was hard to tell, because the freaking thing was about eight feet tall. Let this be the last hurdle, please let this be the last hurdle. Newtie hopped up and said, "It's empty. Let's dump it here." and without any delay we went to retrieve the beast from the back of my car.

The problem we now faced was how do you get a huge bag of liquid into a dumpster that is above your head? We struggled with it over to the side of its new home and did a combo dead man lift to put it above our heads. I think it was at this point when I realized the stories are true. As I looked up at the great stinking behemoth above my head I saw all these little vignettes rush past that make up my life. Rather than contemplate this we gave the beast the heave ho and tossed it in. This time the thud was not like a mail sack. It's a hard thing do describe, as there are very few things in life that make the sound of a 200 pound bag of meat, liquid meat, and jellified meat bursting. It was kind of a wet, throaty, bursting plop sound. It was almost the same sound that is made when you pull all the guts out of a pumpkin that you are carving up for Hallowe'en.

As curious as I was, I decided I could finish out my days without ever knowing what exactly was in the beast's gullet. In a very self-serving way I wanted to look in the dumpster and see the beast eviscerated and lying amidst its own juices in the bottom, knowing it was dead, but I resisted, as did Newtie. We took the plastic sheeting from out of the back of my car and through it in. I imagined it floating down and covering the beast like a burial shroud, peacefully sleeping and dreaming.