How long would you look for a $100+ dollar bill?

I got a call from the elementary school nurse, explaining that Sam had thrown away his retainer at lunch. Accidentally. The janitors had already thrown out all the garbage cans from the cafeteria, but we were welcome to go through the dumpster and look.

The dumpster only had 11 black garbage bags. Not counting the sticky thick and viscous gel on the floor of the dumpster. The janitor let Sam and I borrow some plastic gloves, and I reached in as far as I could and pulled out one bag. I helped boost him up to climb in and he helped me pull out 3 more bags. Hot lunch was pizza, and a side of what may have started as broccoli soup? And applesauce. And lots of chocolate milk. It was a record hot day, over 90 degrees. The flies loved us.

Nothing metal-like. Lots of wasted food. Cold lunch sacks were pretty gross, too. Somebody did not eat all of their beet sandwhich. It bled bright red-purple all over the bread that was left. Yougurts and full Capri-Sun juice pouches squriting as we poked around. Combing through sludge with our gloved hands, searching every corner of the bag and pulling out bottles and bags and gunk.

We finished those first 4 bags and my silent prayers started getting more desperate. I hoisted Sam in again to the dumpster, cautioned him to not step on the bags, and we shoved out 5 more.

As soon as we opened that next bag, Sam got excited. "This looks like my lunch, it's going to be in here, I know it!" He pushed aside cheese stick wrappers and there it was. A miracle in the filth. I made him put it in his pocket (NOT IN HIS MOUTH!) and we hefted the bags back into the dumpster.

We let the office know of our success, and walked home the .5 mile, smelly and satisfied. And feeling stomach-squeamish. I could not even think about cooking dinner. At least he remembered that day, before they emptied the dumpster. I did manage to tell him that, too. No hugging, though, not until after a lloonngg shower.