A short rant about buckets

Over the last few weeks, two buckets have appeared, separately, in my front garden.

The first was a rather fancy Avengers bucket. The second, a couple of weeks later, was more of a traditional seaside style – a castle shape in a jaunty blue, set off with a contrasting yellow handle. Neither belonged to me and neither have been claimed.

lost bucket

What I really want to understand is the HOW and the WHY of this bucket situation.

I’m a good 20 miles away from the nearest beach, and I don’t live near a park or sandpit, so what is a bucket doing near my front garden in the first place? How does a bucket arrive in a quiet, residential cul-de-sac unless it is brought there by a specific person for a specific purpose?

With this in mind, at what point do you LOSE your bucket in said quiet residential cul-de-sac and NOT NOTICE? Would you be walking along, carrying a bucket, drop it on the floor and not realise? Or perhaps you DO realise, but you can’t be bothered to pick it up?

‘Ah well,’ you think to yourself, sighing heavily, ‘that was a nice bucket while it lasted, but it’s not worth bending down for.’

I don’t understand it. One bucket I could pass off as strange but two buckets? It smacks of a conspiracy.

Here are some scenarios I have considered, given my location and the amount of time I have gone without brunch (i.e. losing my mind):

An elderly lady or gentleman wants to post some letters at the post box nearby. They have quite a few because they have been doing their best to stay in touch with their friends from bridge club, and so they decide to carry their letters to the postbox in a bucket they find in their shed belonging to one of their grandchildren. On the way back they decide they don’t actually much like the grandchild and can’t be bothered to carry the bucket any more, so they just toss it on my lawn as they walk past.

One of the cats has found the buckets in a bin somewhere and is using them to lure small creatures onto the front lawn by placing the buckets on their sides and putting a small piece of cheese inside. (Endeavour definitely couldn’t think this out but I wouldn’t put it past Humphrey.

A retired couple, infected by coronavirus and transformed into zombies, is using old buckets to collect and hoard scraps of toilet paper they find in hedges, but their reduced brain function makes it difficult for them to hold onto the handles.

A weird neighbour has taken a dislike to me and is playing an elaborate long-term prank on me where every few weeks they place an old bucket on my lawn and then watch from a window to see my reaction, betting with themselves each time as to whether this bucket will be the bucket that tips me over into madness.

My money is on the last one and honestly, it could be any bucket now.

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10 Comments

  1. 7 July, 2020 / 5:01 pm

    Brilliant post. Nothing wrong with a rant. Personally I’d go with the retired couple turned zombies from the corona virus infection searching for scraps of toilet paper .

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      7 July, 2020 / 5:59 pm

      I KNEW IT. *barricades self into bathroom*

      • 7 July, 2020 / 6:15 pm

        Get down to the Winchester and wait for it all to blow over

  2. katies81
    8 July, 2020 / 8:05 am

    This is hilarious, please tell me that a third bucket has turned up overnight!

  3. Christine
    8 July, 2020 / 1:45 pm

    Are you sleepwalking and picking up buckets because you are missing going to the seaside with Joey?

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      8 July, 2020 / 3:54 pm

      Ahhh! Maybe that’s it…

  4. 10 July, 2020 / 10:39 pm

    When I saw the title of this post, I had to stop by to leave a comment. Now before I say anymore, neither of those buckets is mine but I DID ONCE LOSE A BUCKET WITHOUT REALISING IT! We were on holiday in Devon and in true Brit style despite the wind and the rain we decided to take the kids to the beach for a day out. The bucket (along with spades and forks for the sand) were in a plastic bag and I was carrying them. Except at some point the wind had become so strong that by the time we got to the part of the beach we were heading to, the bag was empty! The bucket had no doubt flown off and landed in someone’s garden somewhere??? Particularly annoying was the fact we had to buy new extortionately priced buckets from a beach shop to replace the fly-away bucket.

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      11 July, 2020 / 7:43 am

      Well. There we go then, it IS possible! I feel slightly better about the mystery now, thank you :-D

  5. Simon
    12 July, 2020 / 11:00 am

    How closely have you looked at said buckets? Because _all_ buckets look the same we always name ours… is there a name anywhere on either bucket?

    • Jo Middleton
      Author
      13 July, 2020 / 4:16 pm

      Hmmm… one of them says SIMON…

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