Alumunum Can-Do

This morning I came to from my sleepiness as I was crookedly standing (I have a tendency to do that; with my bony ankles wrapped around one another) in my too small kitchen, and my eyes fell upon my similarly too small recycling bin. It was piled high with milk jugs, glass jars and aluminum cans; which made me remember something from childhood:

                When I was a kid the neighbors and I used to race the bus from the street stop to our houses. We would run through the ditches in mad attempts to be the first one home before that yellow on wheels screeched past our driveway. It was some bloodthirsty competitive game we all played with each other. I never won any of the races to the bus; let’s face it I was the clumsy buck-toothed one with freckles that was always somehow losing a shoe, but sometimes when the bus would pull past my driveway, my Dad would be standing there, with four rows of aluminum cans; one for each of us kids. We always saved our cans because my parents used the money to fund our “Kid Activities”. It was used it to pay for stuff like Six Flags passes, or garage sale-ing and ice-cream, or roller skating; once my sister and I used some of the money to get pet guinea pigs (both of which promptly escaped somewhere into the freedom of our woodpile on the messy acre called our backyard) other odd activities too if you can imagine. While this fund was certainly a testament to how much soda pop we drank as kids, looking back I can’t help but remember the thrill that I always felt when I saw my dad standing in the driveway with his funny crooked smile surrounded by all of our empty recycling bins. The rims of his glasses were about the size of soda cans, which made me feel like I saw those circles everywhere I looked.  We smashed those cans and laughed until we were sick. Just laughing and smashing.  All I had to do was concentrate on smashing those cans into perfect circles; I’d move down my line of cans and focus so hard. Jump with two feet, move, repeat, jump with two feet, move, repeat, again and again, until suddenly I was at the end of my line. Just like that.

                I was sleepishly remembering it all when I realized it had been years since I’d thought of that particular childhood pastime activity. Even longer since the last time I gave myself permission to just be a kid like that, to smash cans and race the bus like it was the most important thing ever, like it was my job. So I emptied my recycling bin, picked out my roommate’s Pepsi Throwbacks and acted like the hulk at 7:15 this morning. And guess what; I only need one foot to smash dem’ cans now.