Dumpster diving

It's cold.
It's uncomfortable.
And I always feel like I'm going to fall in.
That's why I've never enjoyed dumpster diving.
So it was only because I like this little old lady in my ward that I agreed to go searching for a newspaper she wanted.
It's not unusual for people to call Marc and me for past issues. People in our neighborhood pretty much know we get a lot of papers and tend to hang onto them for a while.
We often get calls for copies of an obituary or a news story that includes the names of their relatives or friends.
It used to be fairly easy to help people out.
If we didn't have the copy of the issue they wanted, I could go to the morgue at the office and pull one out.
Now it's harder since I work out of my home office and I think the morgue got dropped when The Deseret News moved to the Triad Center.
At least I don't know where it is now.
So I agreed to this search with a bit of trepidation.
I missed recycling day so I was pretty sure the issue she needed was still in the bin.
But I was also pretty sure it was way down deep.
Since it's freezing in our garage, it took me a couple of days to work up my courage but today I put on my warmest robe, my thickest slippers and headed to the garage.
I propped up the lid and started hauling out papers (and drink cups and Kleenex and tin foil and cake mix boxes).
I dug and dug until I got down deep enough to need a chair and a grabber utensil.
I carefully stood on the chair that threatened to close up on me and stirred around.
On and on I searched and leaned until I was nearly standing in the bin. I found all the papers leading back to the right date and then the papers leading up to it.
Finally, you guessed it, I found the one I wanted, right smack on the bottom where I expected it would be.
I called up my friend and told her the good news.
"Thank you!" she said. "I really appreciate it."
"That's OK," I said. "I'll drop it off later. It was no trouble."