Is it trash day or not?

What's with the moving-target trash pick-up? Here in St. John's the day of the week that our trash gets picked up slowly migrates from one day of the week to the next all year long. Whenever there's a civic holiday, trash day jumps to the next day of the week until the next civic holiday, when it jumps again. For instance, since New Year's Day trash day has been Wednesday. That's almost three months of Wednesday trash pick-up. When we have another holiday trash day will move to Thursday.

Normally the trash is not my problem. Shaun's in charge of trash collection, so I leave it up to him to determine if trash day is moving or not. However, Shaun's in Halifax on a business trip for a few days, and this morning I had to decide if I needed to collect the trash and put it out on the curb.

I have a number of options when I think it might be trash day: 1) I can pretend I have no idea what day of the week it is and leave the trash for whenever Shaun gets home, 2) I can assume trash day hasn't moved because there isn't a freaking holiday between March 11th and March 18th (St. Patrick's Day is not a real holiday despite all the hangovers that occur) and put the trash out like a good little wife, or 3) I can go to the St. John's city website, search high and low for the garbage collection information, determine if trash day has or hasn't moved, and then put the trash out accordingly.

This morning I opted for Option 2. I knew if I looked up the garbage collection schedule it would confirm what I stated above--there isn't a freaking holiday between March 11th and March 18th--and I'd have to put the trash out anyway. So I ran around the house emptying trash cans, emptying the diaper pail, changing trash bags, and then I rolled our lovely enormous garbage cans out to the curb when I was loading up the kids to take Kyle to school.

But when I drove Kyle to school I noticed something. No one else had their trash out. Hmmm. I thought to myself, 'Wow. I'm the only one in the entire neighbourhood (more Canadian spelling) that remembered today was trash day.' Or was I. So I sat down, scoured the internet for the aforementioned garbage collection schedule, only to find that trash day is now Thursday.

Why? Good question. And here's the answer: There is a holiday between March 11th and March 18th. St. Patrick's Day is a real holiday here. Observed on March 16th. Really? St. Patrick's Day? A civic holiday? Kyle's preschool was still open, and the grocery stores were open, but it's a holiday for government employees and garbage collectors. I had no idea. I guess that's what happen when most of the population is descended from Irish immigrants.

So now I sit at my computer, thinking about how it's 14-degrees Fahrenheit out, and I have to take an extra trip outside to drag those stupid garbage cans back inside. Only to repeat dragging them back out tomorrow morning. I'm going to take this good little wife business and stuff it. Next time I'm going with Option 1. I do kids, not trash.