Friday, August 29, 2008

The garbage truck vs. the fire truck

Nora: I have the coolest idea for a blog post! I'm brilliant!

Jeff: What is it?

Nora: Should I even tell you? Because I think I'm really going to make it big with this one. Maybe you should just wait to read it.

Jeff: OK. Whatever you want.

Nora: No, I want to tell you. It's BRILLIANT.

Jeff: OK.

Nora: See, I'm going to open up saying how our son Hugo's first love was the garbage truck. And how we searched far and wide for garbage truck toys and books and found like two. And then how he was seduced by the fire truck--the shiny red engine, the woo-woo-woo. And then I'm going to say how it's so much easier to find fire truck crap--plates, rain boots, books, rain coats, you name it, you can get it with a firetruck on it.

Jeff: But who would want to eat off a plate with a garbage truck on it? That's gross.

Nora: Wait, you haven't let me finish. I'm not to THE POINT yet.

Jeff: Sorry.

Nora: And besides, who would want to eat off a fire truck plate anyway? Look! Burning building! People getting hurt! Let's have some spaghetti!

Nora: The point is, see, that the garbage truck represents public health, sanitation, infrastructure. The garbage truck keeps people healthy. Imagine if there were no garbage collection? Imagine the disease, the filth. The water supply! Can you imagine? IMAGINE!

Jeff: (silence)

Nora: But the fire truck, getting people out of buildings, cats out of trees, now that gets all the glory. It's great and all but the role of the garbage truck completely gets overlooked because it's PREVENTION, not TREATMENT. There could be garbage man raincoats and rain boots, but is there? No!

Jeff: (silence)

Nora: So remember when I was agonizing about whether to go into public health or medicine, and I really liked public health but was drawn by the glory and prestige of medicine?

Jeff: No. That was before we met.

Nora: Whatever. But see, it's the SAME THING. Public health is the garbage truck, medicine is the fire truck.

Jeff: Also the garbage truck comes more often than the fire truck.

Nora (to self): ?

Nora: So that's my idea. I'm just waiting for the inspiration to turn it into a really top-notch blog post.

Jeff: OK. Love you.

Nora: What's for dinner?



Artwork by Nora

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

For the record, my youngest would LOVE to eat off a plate with a garbage truck.

Anonymous said...

I'm thankful with your blog it is very useful to me.

smalltownme said...

My son had a garbage truck long before he had a fire truck. He loved to put stuff in it.

Melanie said...

You are brilliant, CLEARLY. I'll be here, waiting for a shiny new set of garbage truck tableware from BubbaNorCo. Until then, Jeff and Byron might need to form a Husbands of Brilliant Bloggers support group.

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

He's sweet to humor you.

Irene said...

I am all for the garbage truck. i think those people are vastly under appreciated anyway, so let's make heroes out of them and do a little lobbying for them at the same time.

Vanessa said...

I think you should take the plate idea and run with it. Small kids seem to love stuff like that and it the child is a finicky eater, perhaps it would hold their attention at the dinner table longer.

Manager Mom said...

Ha! I've had many of those types of random streams of realizations. But you're right. I am going to give WAY more props to the garbage truck, and their unsung staff, then I've done in the past.

Minnesota Matron said...

But it is a top notch post, sweetie!

Anonymous said...

You ARE brilliant!

and brilliantly funny.

Love it.

But what about delivery trucks?

She She said...

BRILLIANT, in the way thoughts that come to you at 2:00 a.m. are brilliant. Very funny.

Tania said...

This was very profound...I think...

lapoflux said...

Very deep... I never thought about sanitation services as the unsung heroes before...
You're too funny.

Anonymous said...

We had a Playmobile garbage truck for the youngest. It had tiny cans with lids that opened and we used to make itty-bitty pieces of paper trash to go inside.

Anonymous said...

Who can argue with points like that? I mean really? And plates have lady-bug designs on them and everything else... doesn't that fall into the 'yay! let's eat a plate and pretend we're eating bugs too!' thing? hee hee.

Jen said...

I remember the power of the garbage truck (or bin lorry as we call it on this side of the pond). My son used to rush to the window to watch them, the binmen would look out for him and wave back and actually look sad when he was napping and not there to wave...now he's 5 and the bin lorry gets nary a second glance, it's all fire engine, fire engine.

Jen said...

Ooh, and I remember we found a Lego bin lorry. He LOVED that!

Melissa said...

Brilliant. THAT could have been you disertation! :)