What my wife found in a dumpster on the side of the road

It was a clear autumn late afternoon when my wife Nelly, our puppy Moondog and I decided to take a walk down the street. We noticed something new, our neighbors were selling their house and there was a large dumpster in front of it loaded with discarded treasures.

They had just held an estate sale and Nelly had her eye on something. Days before, she had asked to buy her garden hose, but they wanted to keep it.

As we walked past, Nelly’s eyes turned to the dumpster. “The hose!” she said. Without batting an eyelid, she marched over and jumped straight into the dumpster.

I stood there with Moondog and watched in half disbelief because we’ve been together for 16 years.

“The hose Elizabeth, the hose is in here! And other tools!” She screamed like she had won the lottery.

Not wanting to attend this makeshift flea market, I walked away with Moondog and continued our walk.

A few minutes later Nelly caught up with us, with a grin on her face. As she left I heard a loud metallic noise clink clink comes out of their pockets.

“What do you have in there?” I asked. “Oh, just a few things.” she said casually. They were tool files that I know she will never or very rarely use.

After our walk, she decided to get the hose, her original treasure, again.

She dragged it home only to find it didn’t work. The thing was practically frozen solid. But in classic Nelly fashion, she shrugged her shoulders and said: “I can fix it.”

At this point I had to laugh.

We would have saved a lot more time if we had just bought a new hose and tool files at the store, but that’s not how Nelly works.

In the end, the real treasure wasn’t the broken hose or rusty tools in that dumpster. It was her.