Waste Management

Waste Not

Waste Management

By

Nelson Q. Lewis

Copyright © 2014 L.A. Lewandowski

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. The characters, places, and diseases live in the imagination of the author. All rights reserved. The right of L.A. Lewandowski to be identified as the author of this work is asserted by her  in accordance with Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act of 1988.

One

Waste Not

But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

Psalm 19:12

 

The old junk heap whined in metallic pain, begging to be put out of its misery. Toni Crowe rattled into the assisted living parking lot, a cacophony of clanging metal and wheezing exhaust. The security guard barely lifted his head to grant her access, accustomed to the sounds that announced her daily visit. Aunt Abigail had been particularly difficult the past few days, requiring several extra visits. The additional mileage was the last thing her rust bucket needed. “Old Vickie,” her ancient Buick LeSabre, was on its last breath and long past the point of a comfortable ride. Citizens glared at her when she parked it, the disapproval of Vickie’s greedy dimensions plainly visible on their faces. Toni negotiated its hulk into two parking spots. It was grandfathered in under the old EPA rules, and she longed to drive a car that didn’t require extensive paperwork and special permits. Vickie guzzled gas like a ten-dollar “you know” in a gin mill, her father would have said. Her proper father would never have used the word whore around her. Her father was famous—he had shepherded a frightened and wounded country into a new state of energy efficiency and healthy living. His supervision of the construction of the grid, and the new waste management guidelines, had saved the human race from a hasty exit. He was a national hero, but to her he would always be Dad. God how she missed him.

Auntie, on the other hand, was a stuck-up old bird who controlled Toni’s inheritance, trust fund, and therefore, her life. She was convinced that Aunt Abigail would be the first wretched miser to push her niece’s wealth in a gilded shopping cart through the pearly gates.

The latest nasal complaints were repeated like a broken record. Auntie wanted to go home. At ninety-two she couldn’t be left alone, and she had declared that it was Toni’s responsibility to take care of her.

“I’ve been a wonderful aunt to you, Antoinette. Like a second mother. Your father would have been the first one to tell you that. I don’t think it is too much to expect you to take care of me in my—our home. It’s not like you have an active social life. I don’t need to remind you that you will inherit my estate as well as the one your dad left.”

The old hag would give Scrooge a run for the strongbox. How could Toni do anything with the pennies she was given each week? No one who saw the well-worn shoes and washed out clothes would believe that she was seriously wealthy—as wealthy as was allowed under the new rules. Luckily, the stipulations of Father’s estate had at least paid off the rambling old house she lived in. Unfortunately, he had tied up the bulk of the estate until she was twenty-seven. Next year, on June first, she was going to tell Auntie Skinflint what to do with her sermons. She wouldn’t go so far as to kick her out of the house, but then it didn’t look like she would have to. Aunt Abigail would, most likely, be dead by then.