Garbage.

[fatrockstar]

Two weeks ago I put out a lawn waste bag with my garbage can for pickup. The garbage can was emptied, but they left the lawn waste bag, and then the crows pulled it apart. Yay. I ended up having to clean up a mess of birdseed, shredded paper, and weeds, put it in a new trash bag (that was way too small, but I made it fit), and stick THAT back into the garbage can for the next week's pickup. It took up almost the entire can.

The next week we had a small windstorm, so the garbage didn't get taken out. More garbage accrued.

In the meantime, Grady's litter box was in need of a full change -- not just the remove-the-clumps-add-more-litter type, either -- because it was beginning to STINK. There had been no room in the garbage can to do such a thing, but I was left no choice. I needed to call Waste Management about putting out an extra can.

The girl on the phone was nice and answered all my questions, but informed me that my garbage collection had been canceled at the end of August. Because I had paid my bill eight days late, online, the service wasn't automatically reinstated. Apparently it is policy that online payers have to make a phone call to get their service back. It sucks, but oh well. I had her restart service and arrange to have a second can picked up.

But how did my garbage get picked up all in all the weeks since? The girl wasn't sure, because once my service was terminated THEY REPO'D MY TRASH CAN. Suddenly things made a lot of sense. For your convenience, I will recap:

My neighbor's trash can had no house number on it, but mine did. This summer she started sending her 6-year-old to retrieve their can from the curb, and because the garbage guys have a tendency to throw cans instead of putting them back where they found them the boy would grab the closest one to him -- mine. I complained to my neighbor, who instructed her son to knock it off. A month later I came home to find that he had yet again taken the wrong can. As I had done many times before, I took my neighbor's can, grumbled, and waited for the next week.

The next week I took her can to the curb filled with my garbage. Instead of MY can at her curb, there was a new can with HER house number on it. My can was nowhere to be found.

Can you see where the mystery suddenly became clear? For the last two months the garbage men have been emptying my can and hers, believing that both of them were hers. This is the ONLY reason they have been picking up my trash. The new can was because I had taken hers not realizing that it wasn't her son that took my can, it was Waste Management. She hasn't bothered to come by to talk to me about it. If anything, she's been avoiding me, and probably because I confronted her son about the damn cans to begin with instead of coming to her first -- something that wouldn't have happened if she was ever home.

I have garbage service again, and that's all I really care about right now. That, and Grady having a spanky clean litter box.

Comments

[nessainwe.livejournal.com]

wow.. so complicated! lol. The garbage clean up anyway. I have never really lived anywhere you have to pay for cans or anything.. though there is still time i guess! lol