Where we live, the strange and inexplicable rule regarding bags of household trash is that they must not be placed in cans or other receptacles before being placed at the curb to be collected. Larger multi-unit buildings may use big dumpsters, but everyone else must take their naked, bulging bags of offal and scatter them lovingly on what is called the "tree lawn" -- the little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road -- the evening before trash pick-up day.
This means that for about twelve to eighteen hours out of every week, our street and all the roads nearby are liberally festooned with slovenly heaps of loosely wrapped garbage. It's especially lovely after there's been any kind of weather at all, as it takes very little encouragement to strew individual unprotected bags of trash all over creation.
Maybe the local raccoon lobby is exceptionally powerful.
At the end of the neighborhood beautification period, the lucky garbage collectors get to trundle along in their big trundling truck and chuck in all the bags one by one. Not with their bare hands, at least -- they wear gloves. But still this seems tedious at best, though I suppose it might be easier on the back than coping with whole bins full.
This week, though, I saw that they had got a new kind of truck! This one has a claw on the side, just like the ones in the machines at the beach, where you pay quarter after quarter for the pleasure of failing to secure a cheap stuffed toy. The garbage man works it by standing on the side of the truck and pulling levers. I didn't stay around to watch, but I hope it's a bit more reliable than the seaside game model.
Or, in these uncertain economic times, the city will simply begin charging you a quarter for each attempt to move your trash into the truck. No doubt seventy-eight cents on the dollar will find its way into the pockets of those sleazy raccoons.
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