Wednesday, August 01, 2007
City living at its finest
Where I live, in the City of Buffalo, you can put just about anything out at the curb and in a matter of HOURS it will disappear. Once we put a broken toilet out at the curb for the next day's Big Trash pickup and went off to run errands; when we returned an hour and a half later, it was gone. Two cheap computer desks have vanished into the ether that way, as have a cat-hair-covered office chair, a set of speakers (but only the cones; they left the cases), and various other perfectly usable stuff that we no longer wanted.
So I decided on the spur of the moment to take out all the bags and boxes of returnable bottles and cans that we never got around to returning (and never will, now that they've sat in the garage for about five years). All told, there are probably a dozen 25-gallon trash bags out at the curb now, full of bottles and cans that will yield a nickel apiece. At first I was rather impressed with myself for dragging them all out there, and then it occurred to me: none of the guys who ride through our neighborhood on Wednesday afternoons on their bikes, pulling grocery carts behind them to fill with bottles and cans that they take out of people's trash bins, have room for all those bags in their shopping carts. I really hope that I did not inadvertently set the scene for a big ol' rumble in the street in front of my house, but chances are a professional trash-picker will come along with a truck and haul the whole mess away before the bicycle guys even get here.
Frankly, I'm kind of tired of people pawing through my trash every week—even the trash I put out for them to paw through, let alone my garbage bin. I'll be happy to live in a place where that just doesn't happen. Seriously, my sister and I sat with my real estate agent in his BMW in front of my mother's house for 10 minutes in the middle of the afternoon one day last week and somebody called the cops. I am not making that up. I guess they were worried that my mother's tiny 1950's cape was being cased by aging yuppies. But that will be a welcome change from having potted plants and plastic chairs stolen off my front porch, my garden tools stolen from the garage (including my favorite Martha Stewart adjustable rake), and the spare tire stolen off the back of the Vintage Honda.
[UPDATE: 2:44 p.m. There's a trash-picker with a truck out there right now loading up all my bottles and cans.]
So I decided on the spur of the moment to take out all the bags and boxes of returnable bottles and cans that we never got around to returning (and never will, now that they've sat in the garage for about five years). All told, there are probably a dozen 25-gallon trash bags out at the curb now, full of bottles and cans that will yield a nickel apiece. At first I was rather impressed with myself for dragging them all out there, and then it occurred to me: none of the guys who ride through our neighborhood on Wednesday afternoons on their bikes, pulling grocery carts behind them to fill with bottles and cans that they take out of people's trash bins, have room for all those bags in their shopping carts. I really hope that I did not inadvertently set the scene for a big ol' rumble in the street in front of my house, but chances are a professional trash-picker will come along with a truck and haul the whole mess away before the bicycle guys even get here.
Frankly, I'm kind of tired of people pawing through my trash every week—even the trash I put out for them to paw through, let alone my garbage bin. I'll be happy to live in a place where that just doesn't happen. Seriously, my sister and I sat with my real estate agent in his BMW in front of my mother's house for 10 minutes in the middle of the afternoon one day last week and somebody called the cops. I am not making that up. I guess they were worried that my mother's tiny 1950's cape was being cased by aging yuppies. But that will be a welcome change from having potted plants and plastic chairs stolen off my front porch, my garden tools stolen from the garage (including my favorite Martha Stewart adjustable rake), and the spare tire stolen off the back of the Vintage Honda.
[UPDATE: 2:44 p.m. There's a trash-picker with a truck out there right now loading up all my bottles and cans.]
permalink posted by The Vintage Reader @ 1:15 PM 
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