The reason was because a lady I know (whose name cannot be released) couldn't find a brand new bottle of medicine. She'd just picked it up a couple of days before at the pharmacy but it was nowhere to be found.

The house was searched high and low. We looked in the medicine cabinet and the spice drawer, on the desk, on the dining room table and the countertop. We checked laundry supplies, the fridge and the freezer too, the purse and the porch, the couch and the car. It just wasn't there. And no, someone wouldn't have taken it because it wasn't anything that anyone would want to take for "recreation."

There was only one thing left to do -- go through the trash.

Oh, my goodness. It wasn't pretty but somebody had to do it. That be me. I called for backup from the family task force who arrived to assist on the scene.

The search was executed and the medicine was recovered. There was no further investigation as to exactly how, or why, this little bottle of pills got into the trash and caused such a fuss. That's because these things just happen from time to time, and for my crew, nothing can top a previous incident of accidentally throwing something away -- an incident that has become family legend.

The search happened on a Sunday morning. The grandparents had taken the boys out to eat the night before and one of those boys didn't make it home with a retainer. By the time he realized it was gone, nobody was sure where it went missing. When it didn't turn up, harsh reality set in -- had it been on a tray then dumped into the trash at that fast food restaurant in Linton?

We called the restaurant -- it hadn't been turned in. All the trash from the night before was outside in a fenced area. The very nice man I talked to said I could look through it as long as I didn't spread it out in their parking lot -- he said I could take it with me.

So I hopped in a full-size van and headed to Linton. Another "oh, my goodness." It was a lot of trash. The fan was crammed full from top to bottom, front to back. And the smell! I drove that stinking stuff back home to Worthington, my dad laid a tarp out on the basketball court, and you should have seen the look on those boys faces when I said to start dumping and digging.

Crispy fries aren't so crispy after they've been marinated in soda pop and ketchup in a plastic bag under a hot sun for a few hours. Geez, it was awful -- there were about five of us working on it, bag after bag after bag after bag.

The boys were groaning and asked about just buying another one. But this was no grade B retainer and the answer was, "Nope, not in the budget. Keep digging."

We found it. Hooray! But then another reality. What do you do what a basketball court full of fast-food trash? Yup, you guessed it. We loaded it up, I drove it back to Linton and gave it back.

It was weeks before any of us wanted to eat another Happy Meal or any other kind of burger with fries. But we got over it and we've never left anything behind at a restaurant since that day, and we don't complain over spilt milk, or times when we have to dump out the house trash.

Anna is a staff writer at the Greene County Daily World and can be reached at 847-4487 or by sending an e-mail to indianarose@fastmail.us .