January 14, 2009
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Musical Chairs?
Not quite.
Monday was an all too typical day in South Dakota. The wind was gusting at about 50 mph.
Given all the snow we had (and the new snow coming down) it was a real white out. As in I couldn’t see the church across the street from my office. And it’s a big church.
Monday also happens to be trash collection day in my neighborhood.
Let me preface by saying that several years ago the city switched to a waste management system with automated garbage trucks. The little guys don’t climb off the truck and heave your garbage in. There is a mechanical arm that moves out, grabs your garbage can and lifts it to the top of the truck and empties it. It then lowers your can to the ground and off they go.
The system needs a certain size and rather sturdy can. The city gave each household the requisite container. They are all somewhat tall and squarish with a hinged lid. They all also happen to be brown.
Too much detail? Right. Live with it.
Anyway…I was kinda grumbly when going home from work on Monday because it was cold and I knew I had to drag the damn garbage container up the driveway to the garage.
Only…I didn’t have to, because when I got home there wasn’t a garbage container in front of my house. Not in the driveway. Not in the yard. Not in the street in front of the house.
Rats.
Damn wind blew my garbage can away.
I decided to look for it in the morning. I rather hoped one of the neighbors had retrieved it.
In the morning I noticed a garbage container laying in an empty lot about two blocks away. All the neighbors had put away their containers so I assumed it was mine. I retrieved it a lunch time (in the bitter friggin’ cold) and put it in the garage.
That evening I went to put the kitchen garbage in the container…and discovered that the container wasn’t mine. It belonged to the neighbors two doors to the South.
I called to apologize for pinching their container. They informed me their container was in their garage. Hmmmmm…
They checked that container. Turns out it belongs to my neighbor one door to the South.
Called the neighbor one door to the South. Nope. His container was in his garage.
Only it turns out that the container in his garage belongs to me.
We played Musical Trash Containers.
(Note that since they all happen to be alike we’re just keeping the containers we have. It’s too damn cold to go dragging the things around the neighborhood.)
Comments (8)
Only in SD
Wow…I’m more amazed that you know all your neighbors well enough to ask them to check and see if they have your trash container.
I like the automated trash trucks. Now in Texas I have the old fashioned men on a truck looking at my garbage which is too personal if you ask me.
ha,,what a hoot… you capture and write things so very well doc.
And I agree.. Damned wind…along with the Damned snow…
and damned winter… much too long.
*~matthew~*
Thank you, I needed that laugh.
Suffering through the same weather due south of you, I’m just plain glad to live in an apartment complex where it is only a moment of dancing through the bitter cold to get rid of my garbage at the common dumpster (although I still wish the old incinerator that was accessed through the laundry room was still operating, especially at this time of the year). Brrrr!
it made me laugh… it did i can’t help it.
That was hysterical…I don’t know what I would have called my neighbors…just kept what I had.