Chivalry is dead, and hopefully so is whatever was eating our garbage last night.

(This is what I look like sometimes.)

So, I'm not generally one of those girls who needs a man for the sole purpose of doing things for me. I mean, who needs a hero nowadays when you have things like "The Grabber" to reach up high and the "As Seen on TV - One Touch Jar Opener" which I think is pretty self-explanatory? I certainly don't. I'm not some character in an 80s movie about a town that forbids dancing, I'm certainly not starring in a Shrek film anytime soon, and my name isn't Bonnie Tyler. (See what I did there? Hah.) When it comes down to it the only times I really find myself needing the specific assistance of a man is when it comes to all things auto-related (although I recently learned how to refill my own windshield washer fluid, so there) and garbage disposals, which have admittedly been a problem of late. Frankly, I pride myself on being able to work a drill, pick out a Phillips head screw driver, and uncork champagne (not all at the same time, mind you..that just seems unsafe). As a woman, I have the added bonus of not being afraid to ask for directions or help when necessary, too.. I also don't have the pesky toilet seat dilemma to deal with either. What I'm saying here is that I'm awesome. But, that's not entirely the point of this rant, I mean, post.

My point is a story really, and a short one at that so I apologize for the long prelude. Here it is:

Lindsey and I have neglected to take out the garbage for like, a week, and it gets pretty gross, as one can imagine, after sitting outside our door for so long. (Let me clarify that this wasn't necessarily out of extreme laziness, we both just started back to work after vacation, so things have been a bit crazy around our house) So apparently a creature of some kind discovered our garbage and chewed a hole in it to have an obviously PALEO midnight snack, which is understandable. This morning when we awoke to find the mess outside, we agreed that the trash needed to be taken out immediately upon our return home, so when I got home first, I took it upon myself to take care of business. I picked up the bag (a week old, I remind you) and it was leaking some kind of yellow goo, which was no good for me. Seeing no other option I dragged it downstairs to my car and set it on top of a pizza box (also garbage, I don't just keep random pizza boxes in my car at all times.. although it might not be a terrible idea to do so) inside my trunk, and hauled it to the garbage crusher (I don't know what the official name of it is). Now, the way our trash area works is that it's got it's own 'driveway' of sorts... Once you pull in, the road is blocked until you drive through, and the garbage crusher and recycle bins are all on the left. So I pull in, turn off my car, and proceed to get rid of some various bits of recycle I had laying around, when this man pulls his car in behind me. He leaves his car running, gets out with a handful of clear plastic bags, and bee-lines it for the trash compacter thingy which proceeds to make a bunch of god-awful noises while it eats the trash. At this point he's had to practically step over my bag of trash twice and I'm irritated that he didn't even offer to assist or combine our trash... But, what do I care? My name isn't Rapunzel, I can get out of my own tower and take out the garbage, thank you very much. So I he-man lift my trash bag up the steps only to discover that you can't put anything in the garbage monster while it's feeding. This both aggravates and delights me because now, Mr.Chivalry-Killer and I are trapped (due to my parked car) until I can properly dispose of my trash. I'm not going to lie, I took my time getting out of there and made him really karmic-ly suffer for his lack of manners.

As I said before, Sir, I don't need you to do things for me. However, every once in a while it would be nice to believe that there are in fact chivalrous men in the world who, out of respect, might offer to do something nice for a woman.


Bottom line: I don't need a hero. You don't need to be strong, or fast, or fresh from a fight. But gentlemen, when you see a woman with a disgusting bag of garbage, please take it or pay the kharmic price.