Taking Out the Garbage

Almost all of our garbage cans have lids. Only the ones for paper trash in the office, and for my wet wipes by the door, don't have lids. Why do they have lids? Because garbage stinks. It draws flies. It makes our home messy. And, so I can't get in it and spread it around. Whenever we go out, I always have to wait for Lady to run back and get the trash bags she forgot. I get so annoyed. I am already harnessed and ready to go, and Lady says, "Oh, wait! I forgot the garbage!" I whine. But Lady is insistent. Besides the food garbage, we always have bathroom garbage. You see, Lady can't flush paper in the toilet -that's the way it is in most places in China. The sewer system can't handle so much paper. So, we take it out. Lady hates to see people going through the garbage to get out recyclables, so we put certain bags outside the can. Lady says, "Trash, Marley, " and I know to head to the tall yellow cans across the road. Sometimes, we don't even make it to the garbage cans. Workers or countryside grannies dash to us and take the bags from Lady's hands before someone else can get them! Lady's garbage is really popular.
One day, Lady got our garbage and her laundry bags mixed up. She accidently threw away a good pair of Gap jeans, specially made tie dye cloth pants, her newest Giordano tee shirts, her hiking capris, and two other new tee shirts. We wondered why the worker-ladies were grinning so big when we returned from her walk. Lady wondered why the laundry didn't have her clothes. Oh, well. The clothes made several people extremely happy, and we've seen a shorter version of Lady's jeans on the young worker. Sometimes maybe we should give away our best instead of just what we don't want anymore. I gave the yappy puppy near me one of my new Snoopy squeaky toys, and my best travel water dish. Okay, so I tried to take the squeaky toy back. A few strong words of encoragement from Lady, and I gave it back.
Lady says we need to take out the garbage in our lives, as well. The garbage is our sin. Daily, we need to identify it and get it out of our lives so we don't stink up our temples. Well, I chewed a hole in my nice new blanket, left fuzz all over the living room floor, dumped out the garbage bag Lady had ready to go out the door, left a wet spot on Lady's bed, barked too much when the kids made noise in the stairwell, kicked Lady in the stomach as I jumped off her lap, and lifted my leg on the potted plant in the teahouse to mark my territory (that cute little black female was in the room). Lady forgives me because God forgives her whenever she takes out the garbage in her life. Have you taken out your garbage today?