Waking late and feeling guilty about a wasted day, I borrowed my son’s truck to take advantage of the ‘free compost’ recently advertised at a local nursery.

“How much would you like, Ma’am?”

“Oh, fill it up,” I replied. “I have quite a large garden area to do.”

Eyebrows raised, “Are you sure?” he asked.

Smiling, I watched the back-hoe fill my truck with all the wonderful compost that would give me a bumper crop of vegetables and beautiful flowers. I could hardly wait to get home with it.

“There you go,” he said. Shaking his head he finished putting the last shovel full into the truck.

Approaching the truck, I gasped as my eyes started to tear. “What is that awful smell?”

“Pig manure, Ma’am.”

“Pig manure? I thought it was compost.”

“It is compost, Ma’am like I told you; pig manure.”

“I can’t take that home. My neighbors will kill me, not to mention my son.”

“Well, I can’t take it out of your truck with this,” he said indicating the huge back-hoe.

“What am I going to do?”

Shrugging he moved off to help another excited customer. I wondered briefly whether I should warn the poor unsuspecting man. It was slowly beginning to dawn on me that the smell permeating the air, and which I had discounted as coming from a nearby farm, was in fact emanating from that pile of ‘compost’.

After considering my dilemma, I unhappily backed the truck up to the huge pile and began shoveling the now ‘not so wonderful compost’ back onto the mound of still unclaimed treasure. I know this sounds very strong-minded of me but I have never been one to give up on a project. I also realized there were few other options available.

The more I shoveled the more it appeared to multiply right there on the back of my truck. I tried calling my sons; I tried phoning my daughter; I even tried phoning my mother, for heaven sakes. None were available – it was as if they all knew I was out there shoveling pig manure.

Finally overcome with nausea as a result of the …..I shudder still when I think of it…. ‘free compost’, I realized I was probably not the nurseries’ best advertisement. But I continued to stand on top of that damned pile of manure shoveling it back onto the pile from whence it came.

Eventually a pick-up pulled in beside me. I put on my best smiling face. By now though my face was a pale shade of what it had been and my freckles stood out like boulders on a white sandy beach. I explained my dilemma and with difficulty held back my threatening tears while also managing to control my gag reflexes. I was extremely proud of myself for that brief moment.

“Well, I can take a little but I don’t need that much,” the fellow said. However, his ‘little’ didn’t amount to a dent.

After what seemed like hours of, ‘I wish I was in bed wasting my day’ shoveling and a few more bouts of nausea, a kindly gentleman pulled in beside me. Explaining my dilemma, he, kind soul that he was, suggested he could unload the rest of my truck at his place if I followed him. With three-quarters of a load still in the truck (like I said it wasn’t going down very quickly), I would have been prepared to follow him to Australia if I had to.

Did I mention previously that I wanted a full load because of my large garden? By this time I had lost interest in any kind of a garden let alone a large one.

On arrival at our destination, it took me only a matter of minutes to realize that his wife was not pleased to see me, or the truckload of manure. “Well,” I confided to her in an effort at friendship, “I’m not very pleased with the manure myself but it’s amazing what men get excited about, isn’t it.” She barely responded, unable to remove her eyes from the boulders on my face.

Returning home, I heaved a sigh of relief while I forced the bile back down my throat. The truck was finally empty and only the smell of the wonders of nature remained of my week-end adventure. But with one look at my son’s face, I realized the day was not yet over. With one small sniff (I swear that’s all it took him), he glared at me and declared his truck would be off-limits to me in the future. I was a little hurt, to say the least, that he hadn’t appreciated my well-intended efforts.

The moral of the story is: Don’t worry about a wasted day in bed. We all deserve one.