10:16 a.m. - July 11, 2006
Does The Trashman Really Care?
Because my mind still works in sick and twisted ways at times, this entry by Harri3t made me think about garbage.
What, you say? The only mention was the line at the end! This was about their poor kitty.
Ah, yes, but you see, sometimes trash is on my mind.
Mainly, I wonder what our trash says about us, and if the trash man cares when he makes his run every week.
A lot of times, what�s in our cans are in plastic trash bags, that are rather opaque and really don�t allow for much snooping.
Of course, you can tell kitty litter and diaper genie refuse a mile away. So the trash man will know that you have cats and small children, because even if he can�t SEE the trash, he knows a bag of kitty litter and a bag o� diapers.
The trash man will know if you�ve been entertaining, because you no doubt will have extra refuse that he has to cart away. What this means in our town is that we have to affix little orange stickers to our trash if we exceed one 33 gallon can per week.
The trash man will know if you�ve been away for a while, because you won�t have as much trash out at the curb.
But our trash man will know more about us, because we do curbside recycling.
He knows that I�m a newspaper junkie, because I put out all of the newspapers for recycling. Normally, they take one whole recycle bin, especially if the Sunday papers go crazy with inserts and the like.
He knows where we shop for groceries, because those are the bags that we wrap the newspapers in before we put them in the bin. Of course, I wonder what he thinks about Krogering, and perhaps clucks to himself that County Market may be cheaper, or that we should support the IGA that�s just down the street that�s more locally owned than the Kroger.
He knows how old our youngest is, because after a while a plethora of baby food jars showed up in the recycle bin, and then *poof* they were gone.
For a while, we were buying some of the more exotic baby food fruit as well, like guava and papaya. So who knows what he thought of that.
He knows that our soda choices, mostly, are Diet Coke and Caffeine Free Coke in 2-liter bottles. Rare is the week where we don�t have two or three two liter bottles in the recycle bin.
He knows we drink a LOT of milk in the house, and that Kristin is now drinking whole milk and not formula. Rare is the week without at least two empty milk containers in the recycle bin.
He knows Liz and I like to drink wine. There are usually a couple of empty bottles in the bin, and usually they�re the 1.5 liter bottles (economic, you know).
He also knows my random beer choices. I wonder what he thinks when I have the imported and microbrews in there one week, and the next week that it�s stuff like Milwaukee�s Best. Am I slumming ironically, or just poor that week?
He also knows when I�m cooking my chili, because there are all kinds of cans and bottles of stuff that isn�t normally in the recycle bin.
OK, he knows all this stuff, but does he care?
Probably not, to be honest.
I bet that all he really cares about is getting the stuff loaded onto the truck quickly, without the cans bounding into the street, and that he doesn�t get injured because people are careless about what they put in the trash or the recycle bin.
Obviously, being a trash man is not one of those jobs that you dream about when you are a kid. (Of course, being a child in a mob household may offer one a different opinion about that � but then you�re not really working on the truck now, are you?)
It�s probably quite unattractive, really, especially on a day like this, where it�s raining cats and dogs and elephants and orangutans out there. And then there are days when it�s snowing like crazy, and hot and humid, and below zero, etc. etc. etc.
But you don�t have to get cleaned up to go to work, though. There�s that then.
So, perhaps I shouldn�t really wonder about what the trash man is thinking when I throw away my bottle of Merlot. But of course, my trash man is probably an oenophile, who clucks at the Sutter Home that we buy.
Oh, well, he can invite us over to a wine tasting party, then!
