Alex Goes Off! - "Monday, Monday"

There's nothing like being awakened by the sound of a trash truck. Especially when it's trash day and you haven't put the garbage out. Eight A.M. with only one hit of a nine-minute snooze and this is what happens. No mercy this morning. A routine interrupted. Shake it off. Regroup. Start to think about which one of your friends lives in a place with a really big dumpster. Roll over and go back to sleep. It's Monday.

Now, you've made it through another week being a productive citizen of society. You've produced another week's worth of coffee grounds, pre-approved credit card applications, and take-out containers. It's Monday again. You're an adult. Adults learn from their mistakes. You won't be out done by the city sanitation department's capricious nature. Alarm? Set for Seven A.M. You hit the snooze twice. It is, after all, early. But, you have a plan. Focus. Garbage out, newspaper in.

And it's going well. All according to plan. No shoes, but you did pull shorts on so as not to show your ass, literally or figuratively, to your neighbors. One shiny, black bag in hand, you navigate the stairs. (The little bags of trash collected from different rooms the night before to save time in the A.M.) You make it to the curb. Now, all you have to do is pick up the newspaper, make your way back to the house and your mission will be complete.

But as you make your delivery, you notice you have company. She's maybe 10, 11 years old. Walking confidently in the middle of the street. Wearing a dew rag, backpack, thumbs looped around the straps, and like you, shorts and a T-shirt. Unlike you, she is not wearing a green T-shirt and red shorts, but is actually coordinated.

She speaks first, looking you in the eye. "Good Morning," she says. "Good Morning," you stammer back, caught off guard by the girl's self assurance and realizing, in the light of day, yesterday's self-tanning experiment has turned into an incident, having puddled in brown rings around your ankles.

"How are you today?" The future little president speaks, "Good, thank you. How are you?" You respond in kind, and with a sincerity you yourself are happy to feel, add waving, "Have a good day." The future little CEO, still walking, on a mission, replies, "Thank you. You have a good day too," waving back. For a moment, you watch her walk steadily up the street.

Finding your feet, you step on the wet grass to get the paper. You're halfway to the door when you hear, "Hey! There's something moving in that trash bag." You can see from your stairs that, yes, the neighbor's trash bag is moving. As you make your way over, you ask your compatriot, "Can you tell if it's a squirrel or a bird?" "I don't know," she responds, feet firmly planted, thumbs still looped around straps, but head and shoulders leaning back, away from the questionable trash.

The bag moves violently. There are four to five small holes in it. You make a hole bigger, pulling one end open with your hand and pushing the other end down with the newspaper. "It's a bird," you tell your companion. A black bird trying to fly in a trash bag. In truth, beating its wings, desperately trying to fly out. You pull at the hole again, still using the newspaper as tool, telling yourself, 'It's more scarred of me than I am of it flying in my face.'

"I have to go," says your little friend. And she's right. The bus will be at the corner a block away any second. "Okay. Don't forget to have a good day," you add, looking over and smiling, still holding onto the big hole in the writhing bag. "You too. Bye," she waves one last time.

The black bird, perhaps seeing the light, so to speak, finally flies past you and into the dense, green branches of the oak tree across the street. Choosing in a good way, in the best way, in the only way possible, flight over fight in an instance where one in the two had been the same.

It's Monday, again. You've lost sight of the little girl and the bird. But somehow that's all right. The trash wasn't picked up until 10:30 that morning. Here's to oversleeping, plans interrupted, and wonderful surprises.