Have you ever been ‘dumpster diving’?
I did a few weeks ago.
I must say, climbing into my radio station’s industrial bin, searching for my favourite glasses, was completely gross.
You see, it was all the fault of Cyclone Alfred.
While the devastation on the Coast was, thankfully, not widespread, Alfie, the twisting menace, gave us a week many of us will never forget.
Alfred reminded me of a dud boyfriend: he kept failing to show up on our dates after I took hours and hours getting ready for him.
The kids were home from school and my work was on a skeleton staff.
So, in order to stop the cabin fever, we prepped. And prepped some more.
We landscaped, we cut back, we sandbagged, we tied down, we lied down and then there was the water – not the flash flooding, but the water we stockpiled in case we had no water.
I asked the kids to collect every water bottle they could find (plus a few empty bottles of tonic and Coke from recycling). In the end, we had 53 litres of water.
Who has that many water bottles? How do so many have no lids?
But Alfred cost me $300 by way of my lost glasses.
I clip my glasses on the front of my shirt (I can barely do anything without them).
I leaned over, grabbed my work bin, handed it to my mate Tim and off he went to throw it down the rubbish chute.
Thirty seconds later, dread hit me.
I looked down at my shirt to see my glasses had fallen off and I knew instantly that they were in that rubbish.
I chased Tim and shouted: “No-o-o-o!”
I heard it clunk five levels below.
For 300 bucks, I convinced myself to at least have a look.
Thanks to Alfred, the building was a ghost town.
By the time I could do my dumpster dive, the garbage had been sitting for five days in a hot, locked room.
There is nothing nice about this experience at all.
Some offices in my building apparently ate their body weights in KFC. My glasses were not in that bag.
Another had more empty XXXX stubbies than Suncorp Stadium. I need a job there.
I will forever have PTSD when I flash back to me going through gross bags of rubbish.
And did I find my glasses? Nope!
Luckily, when I got home, I had 53 litres of water to wash myself with.
Sami Muirhead is a radio announcer, blogger and commentator. For more from Sami, tune into Mix FM.
