Disposing of the Evidence

Thursday after work means two things.  Doc. B. goes to sangha to meditate and I make plans to go out for drinks.  I put that word in italics because it seems sacrilegious to put sangha and adult beverages in the same sentence.  But then again, Doc. B. saw the following bumper sticker yesterday: “Want a taste of religion? Lick a witch.”  I guess if that Wicca-supporting individual can put religion and witch in the same sentence, then I can put sangha and alcohol together?

This past week, my Thursday evening plans fell through. So I decided to move my Friday morning routine to Thursday night.  Nothing like getting a jump on Friday morning, right?

Friday is disposing of the evidence day in our little section of the Oakhurst hood.  This is the day when each household sacks up the week’s trash in one of three sizes of expensive, color-coded, pay-as-you-throw, volume-based collection bags that are required by the city of Decatur.  If you don’t put your trash in one of these bags, it does not get picked up. 

The largest of the three bags is almost a Tiffany shade of blue.  Is that supposed to make us feel good about it?  Like we’re throwing away the wrapping paper to the many Tiffany boxes we’ve received since our trash was picked up last week?  The print on the side of the bag includes the phone number for the sanitation department, a weight limit warning of 50 pounds, a caution statement about not putting small children in the bag, and a proclamation that “this bag is ‘furnished’ for garbage and trash only.” 

I don’t even know where to begin.  First, why would I call the sanitation department?  And if I were trying to call them, the trash bag is the last place I’d look to find their phone number – until today that is.  Second, our household of two adults and two cats could probably fill this bag every single week of the year with 50 pounds of cat litter, empty Dancing Goats coffee cups, tofu container packaging, starling carcasses, dryer lint and Luna bar wrappers.  I have no clue what households with children and dogs do about this 50 pound limit.  Guess they have to move on to bag number two. Third, it’s 2011.  Do we not all know by now that bags can suffocate children?  Forth, this bag was not “furnished”, rather I had to drive to three different stores to find them and then I forked over cash for them.  And finally, where is the definition of “garbage” and “trash?”  Who gets to decide?  For example, do the starling carcasses really count as garbage or trash?  (FYI – no starlings were actually harmed in the writing of this blog; only thoughts of a starling massacre were entertained).

Then there’s the recycling.  All of these items go in the beat-up plastic bins that the city did actually provide for us, free of charge, over ten years ago.  This is where all of the bottled and canned evidence goes.  If you drank it or ate it, and it came out of a can or a bottle, it will be out there for all of your neighbors to witness.  If you had seven bottles of wine during the week, everyone will notice.  And if they were all bottles under $4.99, this group of folks will know.  If you ate a can of spam or opened a new box of super tampons, the world will take note.  If you decided to splurge on a pint of tequila or Ben and Jerry’s, all passersby will be in on your secret.  And if you try to sneak in the greasy remains of a Mojo’s pizza box, it will be there for all to see (this is expressly forbidden – no greasy pizza boxes in the recycling!).  By the way, we have one recycling bin that is so beat up, it really needs to be replaced.  I think it’s time that these containers were recycled but every time I put one recycling bin in the other and set it at the curb, for some reason they never pick it up?

And lastly, let’s not forget about the yard trimmings.  They let us put those in an actual plastic trash can.  If it fits, it ships…into the yard-trimmings truck that is.  But make sure you don’t let one little Kleenex be seen in the yard clippings container or your hard work will sit there til’ next week’s pick-up.  And this is true whether you personally put that Kleenex there or not!  What if some unknowing soul, blowing his/her nose as they pass your house, is just trying to be nice?  Rather than tossing the used tissue into your bed of lavender, they put it in with your yard trimmings.  Sorry, Decatur does not want someone else’s used hanky mixed in with your yard trimmings – take note folks; it's all about the trash.

Deuces my friends.  (According to an “in-the-know co-worker,” that means good-bye. But apparently you have to listen to recording “artist” Chris Brown in order to know that).