Keys are huge in the Republic of Georgia                    & it's a good thing!

Soviet-style apartment buildings can vary from 4 to16 or more floors.  Instead of a garbage can for every family, there is a large steel dumpster on every block, sometimes every other block.  On my daily morning trash run across the hair-raising Georgian-style traffic (no rules) on the street in front of our building……. I switch the trash from my left to my right hand at the last minute to heave it.  The key in my hand snags in the plastic bag and sinks into the muck and trash in the bottom of the dumpster. 

       This illustration is not me.  Thankfully that image was not captured for posterity

 

Construction workers across the street stand smoking, watching the obviously  American lady.   I’m suddenly aware that I have on a short skirt I had meant to throw away since it shrank.   

The dumpster is deep with high sides.  My eyes are adjusting to gloom inside, but I don’t see the key.  I will have to lean over the rusty edge and try to move trash around.  The key is large and heavy with a blue identifying tag.  I scan the depths with panic. Jim is 17 km away at the job site and I will be stuck outside until he returns after 5 PM, not to mention that I won’t have the owner’s key.  What if I don’t find it?

I hoist myself up, lean over the edge, holding my skirt and my breath.  My fingers barely skim the top layer so I heedlessly let go of my skirt to hold onto the nasty edge with my left hand to lean further into the dumpster.  Flies buzz around my face.  I’m aware of traffic flying by.  

I nudge the bag I had just dumped and see a flash of blue.  I lose all modesty and lean in as far as I can, fingers just brushing the key which moves deeper and away from me.  Pushing a little farther in, I grasp the blue tag with my fingertips in a scissor hold and slowly lift, heart thudding.  My left arm hangs on to the side in a death grip.  Arm cramping, I take a last glance at the squirming maggots, lift my torso, and land with a thud, knees buckling.  The key is still between my white fingertips.   

As I turn the men hastily retreat into the building.  I am so glad that I could provide some entertainment in their otherwise mundane day.  I pull my hat down around my ears to hide my face; rush back across the street and up the stairs to our apartment.   I shake some unknown particles from my blouse, shower, change clothes, resolving to dress more modestly in the future.                  Love, Karen