This post might get a little long, there's a story to tell. Bear with me. (Ha ha, you'll get the pun if you read all the way through.)
This is my "recycling bin". It is what I've put my recyclables into for over 20 years. We do not have curbside recycling out in the country where this little place here is located. We have to provide our own collection container and drive our recyclables to a transfer station or other recycling location (depending on what we are trying to recycle). As mentioned in this recent post.
Prior to being my recycling bin, it was our trash can. Around the time we finished building the house and moved into this little place here, most of the trash companies were getting out of bag pick-up and going to wheeled trash bins that they provided their customers. So my trash can became my recycling bin in the early 2000's.
About ten years prior to that; in 1991, DH and I purchased it (most likely from Pamida or Kmart, as those were the two housewares shopping options where we lived) when we moved to the U.P. (Upper Peninsula for you non-Michiganders and non-Sconnies). We kept it in our enclosed, but unheated, back porch in the first rental we lived in while DH was in college at the engineering college there. The second rental we lived in, his final year of college, did not have an enclosed porch. So we kept this trash can on the back deck of our mobile home which was situated on a corner of the landlord's farm, with woods about 50' from our back door.
The close proximity to the woods is important here. Because it's how the recycling bin got to be known as the Bear Trash Can in our family.
There were (and still are) black bears in that part of Michigan. Occasionally we'd see a bear on one of the dirt roads we drove on going to or from work (me) or classes (DH). Including the dirt road we lived on. More consistently, they could be spotted near the dumpsters behind the grocery store in town.
One night, in very early April 1993 (we remember the time frame because DS2 was born the second week of March that year, and he was not yet a month old), DH and I both were woken up from a sound sleep (remember, we had a newborn, so if we were actually asleep it was a pass out from exhaustion kind of sleep!) by what sounded like footsteps and heavy breathing in our living room.
He looked at me, and I looked at him, both wide-eyed in the darkness, and he said "Did you hear that?" To which I replied with a question and a request "Is somebody in the house? You get up and go check!"
With hearts hammering, I checked on DS2 asleep in basinette right next to the bed, and DH grabbed a baseball bat (why it was in our bedroom, I have no clue). He quietly slipped out of the bedroom, through the utility/laundry room that joined our added-on master bedroom to the rest of the mobile home, and peeked around the corner where the kithen was to his left and the living room to his right. Turning on lights as he went, he searched the living room, hallway, bathroom, DS1's little bedroom (where he was thankfully still asleep), then the kitchen last. He found no person in our home, even though he checked behind the shower curtain in the bathroom; we were both that sure we'd heard the breath and heavy footsteps of a human.
Sure now that there was no one in the home, DH stepped out onto the back porch and shone a flashlight around toward the driveway, looking for a person or a car. Seeing nothing but our own vehicles, he went back to bed where we rehashed what we'd heard. Eventually we both calmed down enough to get back to sleep, although I'm pretty sure there was a diaper change and feeding for DS2 first.
The next morning, DH went outside for something (I don't remember what, very possibly to drive to the college and go to class), but that's when he noticed our trash can was missing. It had been on the back deck the night before, and now was not there. In the daylight he could see much further than he had with the flashlight the night before, and he thought he could see a bit of blue out in the woods behind the house. So he walked out to investigate, and found our trash can.
As you can see in the picture at the beginning of this story, it has handles that latch down to hold the lid on. When DH found it, the lid was not on it anymore, and our trash was scattered around. That was odd.
Finding the lid, he picked it up to place it back on the trash can (he had gathered up all the trash that he could and put it in the can). That's when he noticed two punctures near one of the handles. Weird, but whatever.
