I had one of these a couple of weeks ago while on vacation, and I still can’t quite understand, figure out or relate to what took place.
It wasn’t a major world-altering incident, but it was one of those that just bugs the heck out of you because it doesn’t make sense to you.
For the past 11 years, I have put the garbage out to the curbside in the same spot, and each and every time, whether it was one bag or four, the exceptional municipal waste collection employee has whisked away our refuse.
However, on one particular morning a couple of weeks ago this all changed, and it perturbed me to no bitter end.
On this particular garbage collection day, I performed the regular garbage day routine of making sure all trash cans in the house were properly emptied, and that all trash put inside the required black garbage bags to take their honoured spot out by the curb — even though I was on holidays, the early morning rise to do such a task didn’t phase me because I was going golfing.
After bringing the garbage bag from the house and the two or three taking up space in the shed to the location many of their ancestors have occupied in the past, it was off to the golf course — no thoughts that something terrible was about to happen while I was gone.
Four hours and many, many, many swings of the golf club later, I came home to find one of the garbage bags I put out earlier in the morning still occupying its seat on the curb.
A quick stop in the house to see if my wife knew anything about why this one was left behind, and the reply I received irked me right off the bat — “there’s a note attached.”
“A what?” was my astonished reply. However, I was very curious as to what this note had on it.
Upon inspection, the note, written in the personal penmanship of the town employee, simply stated “Too far from curb.” -
Upon inspection, the note, written in the personal penmanship of the town employee, simply stated “Too far from curb.”
I then went from being irked to upset, and I can honestly say that some not-so-nice thoughts of what to do with this lone soldier of a garbage bag. But I put those aside, brought the bag into the shed so it could wait its turn to join its ancestors in garbage heaven on the outskirts of Gander.
However, I wasn’t quite done with the upset aspect of this, as I could not totally see the common sense in this garbage collector’s reasoning to taking the other bags that were all next to each other, but leaving this one. And on top of that, I’m sure this person had to walk back to the garbage truck to retrieve a tag, write the little message and then return to the bag to attach it.
Still not willing to let it go, I jumped on the Internet to the town’s Website, and did a search and found a section Garbage Collection and Disposal, which detailed the town’s policies.
This is what I found, “Garbage containers and bundles shall be placed for collection in front of the premises at the curb or street line no earlier than 6:00 a.m. and no later than 8:00 a.m. on the day designated for collection.”
So I went down through the list: No. 1 — Placed in front of premises and at, or at least what I thought, was the curb because it was for the past 11 years and there has been no construction on out street that may have changed the curb; No. 2 — Put out during the designated hours; and No. 3 — It was the correct day because the other bags were collected.
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