Umm…..thank you?

This was the weekend of the Brahms performance and it went pretty well. I had a number of friends come check out the performance and my mom flew out to see it, which was great. She’s hanging curtains in my bedroom. That’s what she does. She shows up and decorates so I don’t have to. It’s a good arrangement.

Last night following the last performance I was pretty exhausted and my back was kind of sore from the evil Gut Buster class at the gym and then all the standing, so I was a little fatigued. I was walking along Franklin toward Grove and I casually dropped the wrapper from the granola bar I’d had for dinner and I heard and jingling sound not typically made by granola bar wrappers. Yes, friends – it was my keys. In the garbage can. On the street. I was horrified. I could sort of see them in there, but it was one of those that has the basket for recyclables at the top and you can’t really reach in. The can was also not very full and so they fell way down there. I didn’t quite know what to do, so I thought I’d look for my mom and my friends and then see after that.

While I was looking I came across a large, older security guy whom we shall call Giant Bostonian (GB). I asked GB what I should do in this situation and I was making it clear that I wasn’t necessarily asking him to fix the problem, but how should I go about fixing the problem. He asked to take a look and so he lumbered along behind me to the can in question. GB tried to reach in and get them, snag them with his Swiss Army knife, all to no avail. Then he decided to use the knife to pick the lock on the side door. He was not successful. Finally he decided that brute force was his only option. Given his carriage and demeanor this is not the first time he has come to that conclusion. He started to tackle the can and push it into the street. The street.

As GB lunged toward the can, I said, “Umm…maybe not in the street.” And he stood up and turned to me and started yelling, “Do you want me to help you or not? You ask for help and then you bitch about how I’m helping. You sound like a woman. Do you want my help or not?” Awesome. I drew myself up to my full height (stop laughing) and said, “I want you to help me in the least dangerous way possible, and it seems like pushing a concrete garbage container into oncoming traffic isn’t the way to do that.” He continued on and when the can was downed, he reached in and fished out my keys. He then discovered that the receptacle was too heavy for him to lift back up, so he left it lying there.

So, if you’re in San Francisco, going north on Franklin and as you come up to Grove, you see a trash can on its side in the middle of the road – all me.