I’ve told you about Josie, the crazy old woman who prowled the halls of my last job, ever watchful for someone doing something she felt they shouldn’t so she could lecture them about not doing it. The woman who had named herself guardian of the hallways and snack room. Keeper of the watering can. Master of the shredder. Defender of the coffee maker. Fear the Josie!

One day, one of my co-workers received a shipment from Amazon, some DVDs or games or something. We came back from lunch and he saw the box sitting at the front desk, since the receptionist hadn’t gotten around to delivering the afternoon packages yet. He said he’d just take it, save her a trip. Excited about his new toys, he opened the box and inspected his shipment. All was good and right with the world, and so we went back to our office. He tossed the empty Amazon box in one of the trash cans near the coffee area as we went past.

We sat down and started working. About an hour later, Josie walked into the door, holding a trash can in front of her. She walked over to my coworker, thrust the can under his nose and asked, “Is this yours?” He, of course, was a little perplexed.

“What? The trash can?”

“No, the box.”

He peered in and saw his name on the mailing label. “Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“What’s it doing in here?”

There was a brief moment while we all contemplated that question.

“It’s… trash,” he explained, reasonably enough.

“Well, it’s taking up the entire trash can. Now there’s no room for any other trash in here. There needs to be enough space for everyone to throw away trash and I can’t be constantly emptying the trash cans all day. I need to keep these hallways clean…”

Yes, she was actually lecturing him because he had stupidly thrown trash into the trash can. Understand, there was quite a bit of room left for someone to throw in some more if, as she feared, said employee was walking down the hall and was suddenly overcome with the urge to throw away a vast amount of garbage, right now, and simply couldn’t wait until they returned to their office. You know how that can be.

Finally her tirade wound down and my co-worker apologized for making the foolish mistake of putting trash into a receptacle designed for that exact purpose. Josie continued to stand there, the trash can held at arm’s length in front of her. My co-worker looked at her, wondering what else there was. She gave the can a little shake. He slowly reached into the can and pulled his empty Amazon box—the only thing in there—out of the trash can. That seemed to do the trick as she turned and waddled out without another word. The weirdness over, he tossed his empty box into his own trash can (which was the exact same size as the one whose honor Josie was trying to protect), where he comfortably managed to throw away large amounts of other refuse throughout the day.

As I was leaving that night, I peeked into the abused trash can on my way past the coffee area and saw a lone paper towel balled up at the bottom. Good thing she made him take the box out. That could have gotten ugly.