Every Tuesday morning at 6am I’m reminded what a lousy homeowner I am. I hear the garbage truck rumbling down the street and I rush to throw on some clothes to gather up the garbage and put it on the curb. We’re the first stop on the garbage route – not our house, but the house two doors down, just past the intersection. So, when I hear the truck I’ve actually got some time to make my run.
The garbage-men get out of the cab where the three of them have been sitting in the nice warm environment and the two outside men slowly jump down to the ground, put on their reflective orange vests, chat about whatever they were chatting about in the cab, then start grabbing garbage bags from the curb and throwing them in the empty truck. I wonder if the driver feels lonely, since the two guys grabbing bags are constantly in conversation.
The regular guys are two young black guys, one of them with dreads and the other pretty close-hewn hair. No matter what time of year, it seems they always have steam coming out of their mouths. The bags dropping in the truck’s maw make a crashing sound or a wet thud or a crinkling noise, which is usually followed by the clattering of hard plastic on the concrete sidewalk. They're pretty good about making sure the cans don’t wind up in the street.
Meanwhile, I’m running around the house, frantically emptying waste-bins, checking the bathrooms, picking up bowls of peanut shells, tossing out empty wine-bottles, checking the vegetable bin of the refrigerator to find out what rotted over the past week, or what was unlikely to be eaten and rot by next week. Then it’s down to the garage to gather up the other garbage bags I’ve tossed in there over the week – or two or three weeks – since I last caught the garbage-man. Bags in the can, open the garage door, trundle it down to the street on its creaky plastic wheels, then back to the garage for whatever miscellaneous stuff I’m trashing.
By this time, the truck has made it around the block and is now coming back to my side. I don’t want to be seen, so I quickly duck inside, slam the garage door closed and breathe. I am sure my neighbors are all sleeping or getting their kids ready for daycare or for school, or enjoying their newspaper and coffee before getting on the road. Their garbage bags were all on the curb last night.
I wonder if the garbage-man notices when I miss a pickup for 2 or 3 weeks in a row. There’s cars in the driveway, so I’m sure he knows we didn’t move. Is his garbage always out on time? Or does he take it to work with him? And do my neighbors notice when they drive down the street on Monday night, back from the supermarket or some errand and notice that mine is the only house without the evidence of the consumer culture on display? No new TV boxes, no new computer boxes, no kids’ toys.
One house down the street put a TV out on the curb – a 32 inch Phillips, just like the one we have – but the garbage-men wouldn’t pick it up. It’s been sitting there on the curb for a few weeks now, like some test of wills between the homeowner and the garbage-man. Who will break down first and take the thing away.
At my parents’ house when I was growing up, if there was some junk we didn’t want or didn’t want to throw away because we thought it might have some value for someone, we’d just leave it on the curb on a Friday night when we knew the weather would be clear of precipitation. On Saturday mornings, the yard sale crawlers would come cruising around, and there was always someone matched with everything we put out there. A pee-stained mattress? No problem! A stack of cracked parsons tables? Certainly! A chess-table in faux Spanish style with 2 chairs never truly meant to hold a human body? Gone in a flash. I wonder if yard sale crawlers still roam around like that? Has eBay made all that obsolete? Or is there still the serendipity of finding that you connect with some unloved lamp or ancient appliance?
Anyway, the garbage-men are gone from my street. I can hear them around the corner, their backup beepers bleating, crashes of glass breaking. The dog is pawing at the inside garage door and I’ve gotta go in and take him out. Into the back yard, where I’m confronted with further evidence of my lousy homeowner status: the scattered piles of dog shit he leaves and which I really need to pick up.
