Like an episode of Dirty Jobs

Where's Mike Rowe when you need him???

I apologize for not having pictures to document. Perhaps I'll just have to be extra descriptive.

....once upon a time, I took the garbage out. It was wet, muddy, and dark outside so I put the bag full of garbage beside the side door instead of taking it the further ten steps to put it in the black garbage can. I used to do that kind of thing all the time at our old apartment. Leave the garbage beside the door, it'll be fine. It's not going to go anywhere. I'll stick it in the big, black garbage can later.
Well, I forgot about it.
But like I said: it'll be fine, right?
Wrong.

There are cats in this neighborhood. Scrounging, grasping, rummaging, clawing little beasts who like to rip big holes in garbage bags and dig out whatever tasty little morsels of rotten refried beans, banana peels, and/or other assorted decomposing dregs they can find. Oh the smorgasbord.
And in the aftermath of this great binge of scrumptious scraps, the inedibles were cast aside for the wind to carry to the nethermost parts of the backyard at its leisure. Lots of inedibles.

It wasn't until I was taking another bag out to the trash that I discovered my mistake of forgetting to put the other bag in the trash can. You can imagine this germophobe's horror at seeing the disgusting mess. And there wasn't a single latex glove in sight.

So I thought... what would Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs do? Well, he'd probably make a few jokes, strap on some shoulder-length protective gloves and dig into the mess while giving the camera some good bicep action. ahem. not that I'm paying that close attention.

I didn't make any jokes. The situation was sooo not funny. But I did strap some shoulder-length protective garbage bags over my hands while I picked up the remains of the feline food bender.
I was glad when it was over.

Lesson learned: NEVER leave a garbage bag unattended!!!! Take the measly extra steps to the garbage can, no matter how muddy or barefoot you are!!

Hats off to Mike Rowe. I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever breath ever, ever be able to do his job.