One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Measure...

I was recently in the pot store (buying pot that was so legal it was on sale), and the nice guy behind the counter asked, "Waddaya got goin' on today?"

To which I replied, "Today's my day off. But I was just using a shovel to dig around in the backyard, trying to level out the ground beneath the garbage bins."

"Cool. That sounds nice."

"I had nothin' else goin' on. Besides, the garbage guys have been giving me subtle hints that they're unhappy. So if there's anything I can do to make things easier for them... why not?"

I live in a small, single-story apartment building, and my backyard is little more than a narrow strip of grass on either side of a very narrow concrete path that the building's residents use to access the garbage bins and basement laundry/storage area.

I lead a pretty minimalist lifestyle, which means I don't have anything in storage, don't do laundry often, and only need to take my garbage out about once a month. But I've converted some of the land on either side of the concrete path into a little garden. And, when I'm not getting barked at by my backyard-neighbors' ill-trained dogs, I find that maintaining the backyard and garden can be a very peaceful activity. This is my little backyard-garden paradise...

I grow beans, raspberries, radishes, tomatoes, lettuce, and onions.

The garbage bins are on the other side of the yard (behind me when this picture was taken), and when I told the nice guy at the pot store that the garbage guys have been giving me subtle hints, I was using polite conversational shorthand to mitigate the fact that my building's yard waste hasn't been taken out on a regular basis for the last two years.

The first time I noticed it was after a snowstorm. I didn't have a camera back then, so I don't have any pictures now, but there used to be a big tree in the building's front. The snowstorm was heavy enough to knock the tree on its side, and since it blocked mine and my next-door neighbor's front step, I decided to clear a path by sawing off a few branches.

I don't have a truck (or a car), so the only thing I could do with the branches was to put them in the yard-waste bin. And since that filled up pretty quickly, the only thing I could do to get rid of the whole tree was to wait until the bin was emptied, saw some more, then wait some more, week after week, for what I imagined would be the regularly-scheduled pickups.

But when the pickup for that first week was missed, I imagined that I wasn't the only person in the city filling yard-waste bins after the storm and that city workers were just having a hard time keeping up with demand. So I shrugged my shoulders and waited until the next week, then the next, and the week after that, and the week after that, until more than a month later when the building's official landscaper came by with his own saw and hauled the branches away with his own truck.

I've spent a lot of time trimming bamboo in the years since, but as you might've noticed in the above picture, I can use the trimmed bamboo poles to build support structures for the plants in my garden.

Bamboo leaves and branches make great kindling, so I started burning them in the fireplace, but I don't need to have a fire that often. And since this summer has been especially hot, I haven't even wanted to have a fire for several months. Thus my attention turned once again to the yard-waste bin, and once again I noticed that it wasn't being taken away.

So I started trying to catch the people who're supposed to take it away, running outside barefoot and half dressed every time I heard a garbage truck. And one day, I caught up with a city worker who was kind enough to follow me into the backyard, look at the bins, and answer a few questions.

The first thing he pointed out was the logo on the bins: a big W adjacent to a big M that stands for the name of a private company called Waste Management...

He then added, "They're owned by the Mafia."

And I laughed, "Ha! That's right... wasn't Tony Soprano in 'waste management?'"

"Don't laugh. It's no joke." And I couldn't tell if he was being facetious...

So I apologized to the city worker for wasting his time and decided to only run (barefoot and half dressed) after Waste Management trucks. I never saw one that took the yard waste away, but once I started paying attention, I noticed that all the bins seemed to be changing places from week to week and that I'd occasionally find them in weird places all over the yard and concrete path. One week, I found them several feet away from their usual space...

I'm not trying to win any awards for my photography, but the above picture shows both where the garbage bins were and that the yard-waste bin was left full (as usual) of bamboo that's constantly intruding from the backyard-neighbors' side of the fence.

Although I'm the only one of the building's residents who fights the bamboo back, I again don't need to take my garbage out very often. So the bins, the order that they're kept in from left to right, and even the days of the week that they're supposed to be emptied just weren't things I was used to thinking about. But when I saw the rearrangement pictured above, I had to wonder whether the garbage guy was trying to tell someone something. So I took a good look at the bins' usual space, and this is what I saw...

The ground beneath the bins' usual space was overtaken with bamboo leaves that, after years of being neglected by the building's official landscaper, had begun composting into uneven piles of dirt. So, after reasoning that the garbage guy was trying to tell someone to clean the space up, I started cleaning...

And I was surprised to discover that the bins don't actually sit on dirt but on two separate slabs of what should be level concrete. So I kept cleaning...

And cleaning...

Until I found out that although the building has five bins (two for garbage, one for yard waste, one for glass, and one for mixed recycling), the concrete slabs were only designed to accommodate a total of four bins.

While I was cleaning, the Waste Management worker who takes out the building's glass and mixed recycling stopped by. It was the first time I'd met him, and the first time I'd had the opportunity to ask a few questions, finding out that the garbage, glass, mixed recycling, and yard waste are all supposed to be taken out on the same day.

The recycling guy appreciated the work I'd done that day, but it was hot out (almost 90°), so I took a break until a few days later (when it was over 90°) before finally digging deep and leveling out the bare dirt...

I did an OK job, but not necessarily a perfect one, and though I'm certain that the best long-term solution would be to pour more concrete, I figured this would do until the end of summer. I also figured that if the garbage guy was upset about uneven ground, he'd probably prefer to keep the garbage bins on the existing (clean and level) concrete. So, since the yard waste gets taken out the least, I put that bin on the imperfect dirt...

And this is what the whole bin area looked like when I was done...

Everything's level, but did you notice that the mixed-recycling bin is sticking out from the others? That's because the other people in my building managed to fill the bin with waste from package deliveries in less than a week. So I thought it would be a good time to share my thoughts on minimalism versus consumerism and needed to prop the bin's lid up in order to let the paint dry...

Then, having asked enough questions to know when the garbage guy was coming next, I decided to sneak out at the next opportunity to try and see the expression on the garbage guy's face when he didn't have to fumble around with heavy bins on uneven ground.

The garbage guy does his work before sunrise, and since that's been a good time to avoid my backyard-neighbors' ill-trained dogs, I've been waking up before sunrise to water the garden anyway, so it was good and dark when I heard him.

I ran outside, then around the building's southwest corner, ducking behind the plants to stay hidden while I watched. But, to my great disappointment, the garbage guy didn't seem happy at all. Instead, he spent a minute or two banging the bins around aggressively while he rearranged them. And when he left, I didn't want to wait until after sunrise to take a picture...

It's difficult to see in the predawn light, but everything was rearranged so that one of the garbage bins was on the imperfect dirt and the other was on the level concrete next to the yard waste. Here's a wider view...

I couldn't figure out why the garbage guy would spend extra time (and extra work) rearranging. So I compared the above picture to the first picture of the bins. And, to make that comparison easier for you, here's that first picture again...

And here again is a picture of the whole bin area...

Do you see it now? The garbage guy wasn't upset about the uneven ground at all. He just wanted the garbage bins, i.e., the bins he has to deal with, to be closer to the gate because it takes less work for him to drag those bins through the gate if they're closer. And although I can understand his thinking in the short term, I don't think he was considering the long term.

What happens if the recycle guy makes the same decision and rearranges the bins so that the ones he has to deal with are closer? Or (assuming that he ever shows up) if the yard-waste guy decides he wants the bin he has to deal with to be closer? Then, between these three guys, the bins would be constantly and aggressively rearranged in a never-ending fight.

So I decided that if the guys from Waste Management wanted to fight amongst themselves, then I'd leave them to it. I left the bins where they were, but the fact that the garbage guy didn't appreciate the work I'd done left me upset. And I was even more upset when, the following week, the recycling guy didn't take away the mixed recycling or glass, and I had to wait another week to find out why.

And I was even more upset when, after waiting a week, the garbage guy didn't pickup the garbage. So I decided to start taking notes.

If you've seen or read any of the entries in the blog about my novel, you'll know that my notes can look pretty crazy. Here's an example...

And I know that my notes are next to impossible to read, so let me interpret the above notes for those of you who aren't fluent in the language of crazy artists: the recycling guy usually stops by around 10:00am, so I was fully dressed when he arrived. I tried getting his attention by simply saying, "Hello," and although he responded, it was obvious that he didn't want to talk. But he had yet to return the bins to their usual space, and I was standing in his way, so he really had no choice but to adopt a bright (though insincere) smile and keep it shining while I interrogated him.

I told him about the garbage guy rearranging bins, then missing his pickup, and although I thought it'd been pretty clever of me to figure out why, the recycle guy figured it out immediately. But, for the sake of clarity, I asked if the bins were supposed to be in any particular order, and he said, "No. Not as far as I know," adding that even if they were, he didn't care, didn't want to fight with the garbage guy about it, and that he'd be happy to pick the bins up no matter where they were when he found them.

So I asked, "Then, do you know why the recycle bins weren't picked up last week?"

And, smiling brighter, he said, "Uh, I was on vacation."

To which I replied dubiously, "Oh. Then I'm surprised that the people at Waste Management didn't arrange for an alternate driver." And that's when I decided to make my first phone call to the Waste Management customer-service department.

Calling customer service meant figuring out how to deal with an A.I. operator that was probably programmed by a bunch of self-congratulating, left-brained, and sadomasochistic techies (who think it sounds smart to avoid contractions in their day-to-day speech). And for a right-brained artist like me (who uses contractions regularly), it was especially frustrating to figure out how to get passed the A.I. to a human being. But I managed, and after being told that the garbage guy falsely claimed the bins and/or back gate were locked, I was assured by the human operator that a recovery pickup would be scheduled within the next 48 hours and that everything would happen on time when it came time for the next week's pickup.

The recovery pickup occurred on time, but I was still dubious. So when the next week came, I decided to wait outside, before sunrise, concealed in black shadow, to watch the garbage guy make his regularly-scheduled pickup. I didn't know whether I was going to see him planting a padlock on the back gate, or if he was going to see me and we were going to get into a fight, but I was blown away by what actually happened.

I heard the truck long before I saw it, and when I finally did, it was on the wrong side of the building, i.e., instead of pulling over to the side of the building in order to access the bins in back, the garbage guy was driving very slowly along the street in the building's front... slowly... slowly... then, without stopping, he sped up, took off, and never returned to pick up the garbage.

My guess was that Waste Management trucks are equipped with GPS fleet trackers and that the driver knew it, deciding it'd be easier to just fool the bunch of left-brained techies who're probably watching him via satellite into thinking he was picking up the garbage instead of actually doing his job. So I waited until the Portland office was open, called customer service again, and started shouting random words and phrases like gabagool, La Cosa Nostra, and I know it was you, Fredo, to confuse the A.I. until it finally gave up and connected me to a human operator...

But by the time that happened, I was livid, deliberately and laboriously asking the human operator, "WILL THE GARBAGE BE PICKED UP ON TIME?!?"

"Yes."

And again, "WILL THE GARBAGE BE PICKED UP ON TIME?!?"

"YES!"

And again, "WILL THE GARBAGE BE PICKED UP ON TIME?!?"

"YES!!!"

"I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT!!!"

And I again had to wait a week before the next opportunity.

Once again, I concealed myself in black shadow to watch the garbage guy make his regularly-scheduled pickup...

It wasn't too cold that morning or too warm, but the mosquitoes were biting, so I wore black shoes, black pants, and a black hoodie. And when I saw the truck pull up on the correct side of the building, it didn't stop in its usual space but much further up the street, making way for a second truck that was following it. Then the usual garbage guy opened the back gate, followed by someone else with whom he seemed to be having an argument.

I couldn't hear every word, but I could hear what sounded like the garbage guy defending his point of view, *mumble* *mumble* "I do this EVERY day! I know EVERY stop!"

And I could hear what sounded like the other guy waving his dick around, *mumble* *mumble* "BECAUSE IT'S YOUR JOB!!!" *mumble* *mumble*

The two of them were obviously used to being in their own private, predawn worlds and were therefore acting without a sense of self-consciousness as the bins were noisily rolled out, emptied, and rolled back in. And I'm sure the people who live in the apartments across from the bins didn't appreciate having their sleep interrupted, but I was just happy to see that the yard waste had finally been taken away...

Although I was a little disappointed to see that the garbage guy had left the gate open on his way out...

It really wasn't that big of a deal, but in case you haven't figured it out by now, I can get a little obsessive, and little details like that tend to bother me.

So now that the whole thing should be over and done with, I'm still bothered by one tiny little detail: the words I painted on the underside of the mixed-recycling bin, BUY LESS.

Remember, it takes time to see the truth, and this scenario took place over the course of several weeks. So although it appeared to me that the other people in my building had filled the bin with waste from package deliveries, the recycle guy missed at least one pickup that I know of, and who knows how many pickups before that? And although this story is an abridged version of true events, one of the details I left out was that after I painted the words, the mixed recycling wasn't nearly as full from week to week.

I don't know if my message on anti-consumerism changed a few minds, made a few people feel guilty, or if those people just had a bunch of stuff they were trying to get rid of while the recycling guy was missing one pickup after another. But I do know that I was wrong to think that the garbage guy wanted someone to clean and level the bins' usual space. And if I was wrong about that, who knows what else I could've been wrong about?

Still, having taken the time to consider the problem from multiple points of view, I've reached the very logical conclusion that the garbage guy is just a lazy, selfish, shortsighted prick.