Every bookstore does it: we all recycle. Most stores do not have our rule: If you take out the recycling, you must bring your cell phone with you. This rule exists for safety. Our trash area is a hazard at best. We share two dumpsters with the restaurant next to us and the adjoining apartments. Generally, taking out the trash out should not imperil staffers, but our dumpster is protected in a wooden enclosure that has a hair-trigger locking mechanism accessible from the outside.
At least twice a staffer has dutifully taken out heaps of recycling, struggled with raising the lid of the dumpster and then had the main door of the enclosure shut on them. Once that door shuts, there’s absolutely no way of getting out short of scaling the eight-foot high wall because there’s no latch on the inside of the enclosure. I should say that our recycling dumpster house (what we refer to it as) also contains the trash dumpster that we share with the restaurant. Needless to say, the trash area can get out of hand and quite smelly and is a place no one would willingly spend time.
The first time this happened, young David had his phone with him (one of the joys of younger staffers is they always have their phone with them). I wondered why he’d been gone so long when the store phone rang and he said he was trapped in the dumpster. Once I stopped laughing, you have to admit, it’s hilarious that someone got stuck in there, I walked over to the dumpster and let him out. He was laughing, too. The second time this happened, PJ, was recycling and she brought her phone with her. It was a Saturday morning and the store was very busy. Sandy was the only other staffer working. She answered the phone and it was PJ explaining that she was trapped in the dumpster area. Sandy quickly apologized to the customers and ran out to release PJ after explaining the peril she was in.
One would think that after two shut-in accidents the landlord would fix the locking mechanism, but no. So, our rule of you must have your cell phone with you to recycle or take the trash out now remains firm. And really, all it does is serve to keep staff all the more connected as there’s nothing more bonding than being rescued from a trash dumpster by a colleague.
This is a veritable fairy tale! What, inquiring minds want to know, will happen the THIRD time the dumpster den tries to imprison a brave bookseller? Are there books to read while waiting for rescue? Have any restaurant staff been discovered, frozen to the side of the container? Do quarreling residents of the apartment building send loathed roommates out with the trash after hiding their phones? Will a hero emerge who figures out how to tie a red string to the latch and loop it over to the inside? Keep us posted!