A sequel to Johnny Cash’s “One Piece at a Time.” Based on a true story.
Well I left Wyoming back in 2018
Bought a Jenison house with the wife, see,
The first year she had me rippin’ out the old dishwasher.
Every day I’d fret over how to dispose;
There’s a fee for the dump and the car barely goes,
The only way out of our garage would be to squash ‘er.
One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man:
I’d sneak it out of there in a trashcan with some luck.
Now getting’ caught meant gettin’ fined,
But I figured I’d have it gone by a few weeks’ time;
I’d save me some gas and at least… twenty-five bucks?
I’d do it one piece at a time
And it wouldn’t cost me a dime,
You’ll know it’s gone when you come to my house.
You won’t find no washer here,
Just a few extra bucks for beer,
‘Cause I’m one sneaky, innovative spouse.
So the very next week when the trash guy came,
There sat our bin, looking same old same.
But he left that day with a truck bed full of dish racks.
I never considered myself a cheat;
Everkept wouldn’t mind just one little piece,
Especially if I strung it out over several weeks.
The first week I tore off the mainframe door,
And the next I threw out the hinges and drawers
Then I clipped all the wires and tossed out the electrical box.
The little things I could get in my big trash bin,
Like nuts and bolts and screws, and then
I took a Sawzall to the rest, made five or six trash-sized blocks.
I’d do it one piece at a time
And it wouldn’t cost me a dime,
You’ll know it’s gone when you come to my house.
You won’t find no washer here,
Just a few extra bucks for beer,
‘Cause I’m one sneaky, innovative spouse.
Now up til now my plan went all right,
Til we tried to throw a great big party one night,
And that’s when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
There was plenty of dishwasher left to throw out,
And plenty of trash from our social blowout,
When we filled up our trash bin, we noticed all the space was gone.
So we scrunched it down so that it would fit,
Stood on top, stomped it, and all that shit,
We had that trash bin packed just like a bar.
The sides did bulge; that was another sight,
It didn’t look pretty, but that was alright.
Better than a trip to the dump in our old car!
The trash bin lid kinda poked up too,
So I smushed it back down and when I was through,
Well that’s when I realized I forgot about the insulation pad.
About that time my wife walked out,
And I could see in her eyes that she had her doubts,
She said, “Would one more week really be that bad?”
But I was sick and tired of this tedious game,
To wait another week would’ve been a damn shame,
I was bound and determined to send ‘er off today.
When the trash guy came, I watched from the yard
As the claws clamped down, it struggled real hard
But I tell ya friends, where there’s a will, there is a way.
Like a tube of toothpaste gettin’ squeezed out,
The rest of that dishwasher slowly eased out
And dropped in the truck with a satisfying clunk.
The driver nodded and waved hello
And I saluted the naïve fellow,
And returned to a garage with one less piece of junk.
I did it one piece at a time
And it didn’t cost me a dime,
You’ll know it’s gone when you come to my house.
You won’t find no washer here,
Just a few extra bucks for beer,
‘Cause I’m one sneaky, innovative spouse!
Nick Meekhof (’15) graduated with a major in writing and a minor in geography. A farmer for the first twenty-three years of his life, Nick currently works for the Michigan Department of Agriculture. When he’s not traversing the state conducting orchard inspections, he can be found exploring the rivers, forests, and small towns all throughout the Great Lakes State. His current goals include kayaking one hundred Michigan rivers, swimming in Lake Michigan during every month of the year, and visiting as many Michigan breweries as possible.
