July 29, 2008

Trash Day Rant Redux

Justin Katz

Given past experience with the vulnerability of our trash receptacles on garbage day, we should have known better. We shouldn't have run out of garbage bags. The children shouldn't have filled an unlined can. My wife shouldn't have put that can out on the street to be emptied into the truck.

But it seems to me that it ought to have been perceivable that the whole thing wasn't meant to be taken, and I'm close enough to that line of work to imagine that we were on the receiving end of a lesson about pushing the boundaries of those who serve us. Personally, were I a garbage man in a sour mood, my instructional method would have been to leave the can untouched. Moreover, were they garbage men who stood to lose my business, they might have been more circumspect about the conclusions to which I might come, and were their employer not assured of my payment no matter my personal impression of his company, I'd be more confident that a complaint would be justly addressed.

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You filled a 55 gallon trash can with trash, not in bags, and expected the trash guy to lift that can and tip it into the back of his truck, three feet off the ground, empty it, and return it to the curb?

I'd say you're lucky he didn't empty it onto your lawn.

Posted by: Greg at July 30, 2008 7:28 AM

Umm, no. It was a small kitchen garbage can -- the kind that fit loose beneath a sink. Perhaps I could have made that clearer, but I thought context (e.g., children filling the can) would have at least raised that as a possibility.

Posted by: Justin Katz at July 30, 2008 7:46 AM

Umm, no. It was a small kitchen garbage can -- the kind that fit loose beneath a sink. Perhaps I could have made that clearer, but I thought context (e.g., children filling the can) would have at least raised that as a possibility.

Posted by: Justin Katz at July 30, 2008 7:49 AM

Oh. Yeah, that was kind of a crappy thing for them to do then.

Posted by: Greg at July 30, 2008 8:12 AM