And That Stinks!
I have a beef, or complaint, to pick with the garbage men and their trucks that roll down my street at five in the morning. During the week, I am awake by 5 a.m., so I’m not usually bothered by something or someone interrupting my sleep that I don’t mind or welcome.
I’m somewhat of a heavy sleeper. I can sleep through bombings, wars, and thunderstorms, but I can’t sleep through dripping water, idling trucks and garbage cans being dragged across the pavement. Every time the garbage truck catches me sleeping in, I ask myself: Does the garbage really need to be collected so early in the morning? I don’t think so, but I did a quick search on the web to see if I could find an answer to my question or at least an explanation. Here’s what I unearthed:
“Residential pickup starts at 5 a.m. and goes until the trucks have finished their routes. Commercial pickup starts at 4 a.m. To start trash pickup later would cost more because the process would take longer. Morning trash pickup is safer because fewer people and vehicles are out and about.”
So it’s less expensive, it’s safer and fewer cars are on the street. I get it, but I don’t buy it. Garbage trucks bring the noise because of discrimination! Yep, I figured it out. I’m not going to play the race card, we already know that card has been dealt and played out. I’m referring to the class or social distinctions “between individuals or groups in societies or cultures” card.
As I mentioned before, I live in the shoddier part of a nice town and that’s fine, substance and covering is all I need…and a new car and maybe some clothes, but other than that, I’m good. The houses on my block are closer together than the houses a few blocks up. The further you drive up the hills of Maplewood, the bigger and more spacious the houses become. Just to give you a visual, three to four houses on my block is the equivalent to one house on another block, not including the lawn.
As you navigate down the hill into the valley where the green grass doesn’t grow, the houses get smaller and closer together. What happened? Did a surveyor look at the city lines as architects were building houses and say, “Oh crap, we’re running out of neighborhood! You’re going to have build the last 500 houses on this block a lot closer together and instead of an actual lawn, throw in a patch of grass so they’ll have something to mow on the weekend.”
The houses are close together, but not like where I lived before where I could hear my neighbor flush their toilet. Too many times I thought of reaching out the window and just handing them a roll of toilet tissue, but then they would know I was listening. Not on purpose, but to things that annoy me, and seemed to be magnified tenfold.
Every town has a ghetto. I just wish people didn’t judge you based on where you live, the car you drive, the color of your skin or the clothes you wear. And by people, I mean the Sanitation Department. I think the garbage truck rolls around “up in here” [a line stolen from DMX] at 5 a.m. because they don’t care about waking the lowly am-ha’aretz, that’s Hebrew meaning the people of the land.
The garbage truck is loud, the garbage men drag cans across the pavement, through driveways and they don’t always clean up after themselves. I know this behavior doesn’t go on in other parts of town. I actually witnessed a garbage truck on one of the nicer streets and the experience was totally different. It was like watching a Special Weapons And Tactics operation in action, that’s right, a SWAT team.
First of all, the garbage truck didn’t drive into the neighborhood, but cut the engine a few blocks back and snuck up on the street. Then it hid behind a tree and the trash collectors dispersed onto the street in a tuck and roll fashion like Olympic gymnasts of garbage removal. Signaling the coast was clear, the garbage truck crawled from house to house on its underside as its belly was filled with stolen garbage. Then it left.
Noise? What noise? If garbage was collected at 5 a.m. up the hill, it would cause uproar in the land. Instead, the tooth fairy of garbage mysteriously extracted trash from the garbage can, undetected, and replaced it with a mint on top of the lid.
If garbage removal can be orchestrated into a sneak attack up the hill where the green grass grows, then how come the garbage men can’t be just as quiet and courteous when they are in the valley? Because we’re not worthy. Interestingly enough, when I witnessed this miracle, there were a few things I did take note of: It was around 10:00 a.m., the sanitation workers cleaned up after themselves and no garbage can was harmed during the operation of that mission. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not have believed it.
In: Pet Peeve · Tagged with: Garbage Truck, Ghetto, Surburban
on August 17, 2009 at 8:15 am
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Absolute favorite line:
Then it hid behind a tree and the trash collectors dispersed onto the street in a tuck and roll fashion like Olympic gymnasts…
Unfortunately I, too, live in the, uh, affordable part of town where the houses are almost on top of each other and the lawns are small. And our trucks arrive between 5 am and 8 am.
And no one is cutting the engine.
cardiogirl´s last blog ..I think I want a boomerang
on August 17, 2009 at 7:52 pm
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It really erks my nerves sometimes, I know they wait until the better-offs are awake before they go creeping onto their block. Even now on the way to work, I drive behind a garbage truck – it’s close to 9, but still not 5 or 6 in the morning.
on January 11, 2010 at 8:51 am
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Your metaphors are hilarious.
i use metaphors? cool. what is that again?