Humor masks our greatest fears and an event yesterday proves I am still full of it, the fear I mean. This blog is my mask.Blame it on a sick sense of humor and fear, but I laughed when Shelly Dass on TV6 reported that the police were still investigating what caused a "garbage bin to blow up in down town Port-of-Spain on July 11th ". I laughed when a friend told me that the police was now on the hunt for Dust-Bin Laden. I laughed all the way to St. Anne's.
The reason is not important, but only the fact that I had to take a trip to mid-town Port-of -Spain starting from somewhere on the extreme west of Park St. My regular route through Victoria Square soon turned into a nightmare when I suddenly noticed that I was surrounded by bins upon bins (see illustration above). If the amount and the placement of these bins (poor attempt at small circles on the drawing) were typical, I could not say because like most people, I never paid attention to garbage bins before. Take a look at the drawing. Wouldn't you say the amount of bins and their placement are strange? This had to be the work of a sanitation engineer gone mad or the Government.
Gripped with fear, my mind, independent to my brain and body, told me "get the hell outta here." The only two other people in the Square were vagrants. I made this assumption because they had that very calm, not-a-care-in-the-world look about them and their sense of fashion begged to be forgiven. Their calmness was reassuring but their distance from the bins weren't.
As good fortune would have it, I came out of the square physically intact but mentally shattered. I couldn't help but wonder if I was the only one in the country who reacted, and is reacting this way. I think not. My humor only hides my fear but my ski mask probably does a better job.
