ArcaMax

When it rains, like it's raining today, I think about the people working the trash trucks in my neighborhood.

The town I live in does not provide or require a uniform trash container. You can put your trash out in any kind of container, and the container doesn't have to have a lid.

When it rains, the barrels without lids get water in the bottom, sometimes a lot of water. That makes the barrels heavier for the guys on the truck to lift.

I watch the guys pick up the trash barrels when it rains. The town where I live is majority white. The trash guys are majority Hispanic. Everyone's where they're supposed to be. I'm in the house drinking coffee. Ernesto is out in the street wrestling with my waterlogged trash.

But maybe Ernesto has ambition. He throws enough barrels, maybe one of the kids will go to college. My father was a bartender when I was a kid, and he didn't like his work, but he thought if he could just get his son through college he might have done something with his life other than fight three years of a world war and pour shots and beers. Some people can't afford to have ambition for themselves, so they have ambition for their kids.

There are bumps on the way to that college ambition, though. Sometimes, the kid's smart enough for college but it turns out he/she is "they" and you're a Christian and you don't want the kid to be gay.

My recommendation is that, along with the kid's college fund, you set up a fund for "conversion therapy" so, if the kid turns out to be gay, or at least he/she says they're gay, you can pay somebody to fix the problem.

The Supreme Court of the United States of America is very interested in gay "conversion therapy," because, in a country where people are hefting 48-gallon trash cans half full of water, the government is taking yet another dive into the underpants of the nation.

The whole "conversion therapy" thing is a free speech issue, although what it should be is a matter for your police department's fraud unit.

It's a hell of a hustle. Ernesto shoulda got in on it, if only because you work indoors and all results are imaginary. You either empty a trash can or you don't, but de-gaying somebody's kid is a little fuzzier. The best you can hope for is that several weeks of "conversion therapy" will at least teach the kid to do a better job of lying.

Some states banned "conversion therapy" not so much because it's a greasy little swindle but because it's bad for the gay kids, who learn to hate themselves even more than they did before the therapy got started. Since the matter concerns what's going on in the underpants of the nation, it had to go to the Supreme Court, which is America's governing body on all things touching the boxer shorts and lace panties of our glorious republic.

The town where I live could pass one ordinance requiring lids on trash cans, and Ernesto's life would get one hell of a lot easier on rainy days. No one would take that ordinance to the Supreme Court, either. If Ernesto starts hauling trash in capri pants, espadrilles and a halter top, sooner or later the Supreme Court is gonna go to work.

The job blows out your back. The job ruins your knees. The job wears the cartilage away until your joints are grinding bone-on-bone.

And don't complain. You're lucky to have a job. It takes a real man to lift a trash can full of greasy, stinky water. And, hey, maybe one of the kids will go to college.

To find out more about Marc Dion, and read words by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle and iBooks.