Still Rolling Around: Street Corn Success and the Tragedy of Discontinued Garbage Bags

 

Welcome to Still Rolling Around — the new home for all the things that never quite fit anywhere else but refuse to be forgotten.

Like the back cupholder in your car, this series is where the dog treats, busted pens, loose change, and crumpled reminders of real life collect. Not important enough to organize, but way too real to toss.

These stories don’t belong in a travelogue or a shop tale. They’re the random moments, small observations, and everyday chaos that make everything else make sense.

They may not follow a theme, but they hold the glue — the in-between parts of a life lived wide open.

So here they are, finally, where they belong.
Still rolling around.

________________________________________________________________________

Street Corn Success and the Tragedy of Discontinued Garbage Bags

I went to Walmart yesterday to grab ingredients for street corn. And let me tell you — it came out absolutely wonderful. Everyone liked it. Every single person at the table. In this house, that kind of unanimous approval is basically a certified miracle. I’m tempted to call the Vatican and report it.

I had to leave the cilantro on the side because we’re a house divided. Half of us taste that fresh, zesty herb, and the other half think we’ve just licked the bottom of a bottle of Dawn. Hannah, always one for flair, said it best:
“It tastes like I just ate a stink bug.”

Then there’s Jamie — her stomach’s been a little touchy lately, so the cayenne pepper stayed in the shaker, untouched, like a loaded weapon no one dares fire. It's like cooking in a minefield, but somehow I managed to get it right. The corn was grilled, spiced (but not too spiced), cotija-ed, and served up hot.

But this story isn’t about the corn.

It’s about what happened between the ears of corn and the checkout line — specifically, a text from Jamie, like clockwork:
“Don’t forget bleach.”

Not on the list. Never is. But we always need it.

That reminded me that we were also out of garbage bags. I wandered back to the cleaning aisle and started scanning the shelves, expecting to find my old reliable: the mint-scented, rodent-repelling Walmart brand kitchen bags.

---

Yes, I Have a Favorite Garbage Bag.

Let’s pause here.

Because yes — I, a grown adult man with bills and responsibilities and gray in his beard — have a favorite trash bag.

Let that sink in.

These weren’t just “scented.” They were mint-scented. You’d open one of these bags and suddenly it smelled like your kitchen brushed its teeth. And every time you lifted the lid to throw something in, instead of a whiff of banana peel funk or yesterday’s leftovers fermenting, you got this bracing whoosh of peppermint. It was like Altoids for your trash.

And even though we don’t have a rodent problem (yet), the box proudly claimed the scent repels pests. I never verified it, but I liked the idea of some woodland creature catching a noseful of mint and saying, “Nope. Not today.”

But yesterday?

They were gone.
Not just out of stock — gone. No label, no price tag, no empty space on the shelf that suggested a restock was coming. Just… erased. Replaced by lavender, “fresh scent,” and citrus.

All of which smell like a bad car air freshener or the waiting room of a cheap dentist’s office.

I stood there, staring at the shelf, betrayed. Like some idiot who invested emotionally in a product that was clearly never meant to be permanent.

---

This Is How It Begins

And that’s when it hit me.

The first signs of old age aren’t what you think. It’s not the aching knees or the mysterious sounds your back makes when you get out of bed. No.
It’s the moment you find yourself ranting in a Walmart aisle about how Reese’s peanut butter cups now cost $2.50 when you distinctly remember buying them for 40 cents out of a vending machine.

It’s realizing you’ve become emotionally attached to the scent of a trash bag.

You look around, muttering,
“They just don’t make things like they used to,”
and you mean it. You remember when stores had actual clerks instead of kiosks, when cereal came with prizes inside that weren’t QR codes for apps you’ll never download. You remember mint-scented garbage bags.

Next thing you know, I’ll be outside in a folding chair, rocking slowly, waving my hand at passing cars and yelling, “Slow down!”
And God help the poor kid who dares cut across my lawn to chase a frisbee.

---

I Don’t Want to Be That Guy... But Here We Are.

I don’t want to be that guy.
The one in the nursing home someday, boring everyone with stories about “the good old days” of affordable candy bars and garbage bags that made your kitchen smell like wintergreen bliss.

But here we are.

And all I wanted was a side of bleach and a little street corn.