Trash Bag Story

This is Mechelle. Julie's Sister. I have a memory of Grandma that can not be forgotten! When we were kids, we took a lot of trips down to Utah to visit my Aunt Effie. (Named after her mother) It was a 10,000 mile drive. Well maybe it was not that far but is it sure felt like 10,000 miles.

We rarely stopped except for gas. We never bought anything, except for gas. And if we were tired, we would stop at a rest stop and sleep in the car.

The car. This car was a VW rabbit. They liked it because of...that's right... the gas mileage. I think it got 62 miles to the gallon. But it was not very comfortable. We would cram as many of us in there as we could, pack some sandwiches, clothes and go.

There is a gold mine of stories here to be told, but the one I will focus on today is about the packing. Grandma and Grandpa never had or at least, never used a suitcase. Instead, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, they used garbage bags. Everything we needed went into a garbage bag; clothes, food, shoes, etc.

One trip I am recalling, the car did not smell very good. And to make matters worse the smell got stronger and stronger as the trip went on. But what could I do but endure? I was a child and had no say in the situation. I did not want to make Grandma feel bad so I did not tell her that her car stunk.

We FINALLY got to my aunt's house, we started unpacking the over packed car. I took in trash bag after trash bag. Finally I was handed a bag that smelled very badly. The same smell I had endured for the past 15 hours or so. I looked into the trash bag and found not clothes, food, shoes or even a toothbrush. What did I find? That is right, you guessed it: TRASH. Someone had grabbed the wrong bag and instead of my clothes for the trip, we had brought trash.