Why you shouldn't go walking on garbage day

The Bluegrass region has a love affair with the sun. Compared to the mountains and high hills of the eastern part of the state, where I've spent most of my life, this flatter area sees more lingering, lovely sunrises and sunsets, casting a golden glow over the rolling fields lined with Civil War-era stone walls and new, crisp white fences. The middle of the day is a little harder to appreciate, however; the same low hills that allow for picturesque beginnings and endings to the day also fail to provide much shade as the morning fades to noon and noon to afternoon. On late summer days, the heat can be unrelenting.

It was just shaping into such a day today when I decided I couldn't wait any longer to go outside. Yesterday, the doctor pronounced me sufficiently progressing in my recovery since having a human being surgically extracted from my body three weeks ago--I mean since joyously having a Cesarean section--to allow me to start walking for exercise. After a few weeks of bedrest, a weeklong hospital stay and three weeks of living like a mole, I didn't care if it was already 80 degrees; I was more than ready to put on my sneakers and get moving. So, around 11 a.m., I performed the acrobatics necessary to get a newborn into a stroller:

• Step one: take her to the car and strap her in her car seat. This means balancing her on one arm, with keys, phone, bottle and pacifier in the other hand, while opening the car door, inserting the baby into the appropriate position, all without dropping anything--most importantly, the baby.
• Step two: get the stroller out of the trunk and wrestle with the "easy open" latch (which is NOT easy to open).
• Step three: then perform the great fete of popping the car seat out of its base and into the stroller in a single motion without waking the peaceful baby within.
• Take care not to curse in the garage, since voices echo in there.

I was feeling pretty good by the time I hit the sidewalk. Then I noticed something: Garbage day. Plastic cans and plastic bags lined both sides of the street. Not such a big deal, I thought, and sucked in my abs and put those Nikes to the street. By the time I got to the end of the block, I noticed something foul following me: the ghost of the garbage. I noticed the baby squirming and making an equally foul face, so I closed up the stroller cover and kept walking. Unfortunately, the garbage truck had not made it to the neighborhood yet. So, every hundred feet or so, there was the suffocating stench.

The further I went, the higher the sun rose in the sky. The baking garbage became increasingly rank. I tried holding my breath, but soon found that walking is not an anaerobic activity. Just when it seems my lungs would burst, I had to give in and take a deep breath. I'm not sure my head was spinning from asphyxia or the garbage. Then, just as I rounded a corner, I heard the glorious sounds of the garbage truck about two blocks away. I walked faster, trying to catch up with it and follow its path. I never thought I'd be eager to follow a garbage truck, but being a safe distance behind would mean that the offensive garbage would be on the truck, not on the sidewalk. I hurried along, but unfortunately, the streets between me and the truck had not been serviced yet. I walked faster. The smell was worse and worse. And then I lost sight of the garbage truck.

Oh, no! I pushed the stroller as quickly as I could. By this time, I was drenched, and I was worried that the interior of the stroller was becoming a mini sauna. Distracted with that thought, I stopped in my tracks and put one hand inside the stroller. Satisfied that the baby was not melting, I started again. As I walked, I noticed something soft underfoot. To my horror, I looked down to see a feminine product stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

Now, that's not something you just pull off. I raked my foot along the sidewalk, hoping to dislodge it, but it was stuck firmly. I hoped no one would happen to look outside to see me with this, of all things, on my shoe, doing a weird little dance as I alternately dragged and shook my foot. Just as I thought maybe I was going to have to sacrifice a Nike, it relaxed its grip on my pride and my shoe. When I last saw the offending article, it was lying in all its glory in the middle of the sidewalk somewhere on a nice street lined with stately brick houses and boxwood shrubs.

For the record, following a garbage truck is NOT a good idea. I found that if you are within sight of the truck at noon in Kentucky in early September, there is no safe distance. It stinks.

At least I got in my first day of exercise. I hope to do a little every day. Well, maybe not on Fridays.