Working within an "attitude of gratitude" I can walk out to the curb after the trash collection truck has come and just pick up the bits floating around that didn't make it into the truck and still be really grateful for trash collection. Most of the escaping trash isn't interesting and usually paper from our trash bins the Airedale didn't manage to gobble down. Unfortunately, she's developed a taste for paper as her predecessor did. If we don't keep the bathroom doors closed, the dog will empty the trash, pull down the tissue box, empty it and then get started on the toilet paper roll. All eventually comes out in the end . . . we think.

In any case, last week after the trash truck rolled down the street, I walked out to collect the can and found something very strange in the middle of the front lawn. Not the usual trash and not ours. The piece of lined notebook paper was clearly a writing exercise from the Universe. Or at least an elementary school somewhere. Stapled to the page was a hand-drawn sign, ELECTRONIC BOY, outlined in pencil in those fat, semi-block capital letters that kids do then color in--this one in bright yellow. The kid had also drawn glowing light bulbs and a inside/outside view of a box of some kind, maybe a computer CPU? I think he drew those first as the lettering started out big then squeezed up to fit the right edge.

Perhaps it was the notebook page itself that was the most interesting. This was clearly an assignment completed by Alex (written in cursive) #30 on 11/3/05. The assignment must have been something to the effect of: What would your name be if your parents renamed you? I thought that a clever one and imaginative on the part of the teacher, casting about for something to get the kids to write about.

Here's what Alex printed: If my parents renamed me I would be Electronic Boy. My parents would name me that is because I am an expert on electronics. Another reason I would be renamed into Electronic Boy is because I can take a part an electronic item and rebuild it. I can also fix any uncomplecated electronic item.

So, we've some choices for you to make in what to write about should you care to. The first would be Alex's assignment: What would your parents rename you TODAY? Another might be: How did Alex's Electronic Boy piece from November 2005 end up on Mmmm's lawn last week? And WHY? In answer to that, from my experience mothering a nine or ten year old boy, I'd say Alex was stuck in his room because he never put away toys, clothes, books and paper or that electronic stuff he'd taken apart. His mom shoved folded black trash bags under the door and told Alex to fill them until a pathway was made for his escape. All his old school stuff from first to four grades went into the bags and into the trash truck, which left a trail of Alex detritus through the neighborhood.

Or Electronic Boy invented a time machine and dumped this teaser on my lawn to screw with me. Yeah, that's what happened.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmelinda