Life in the Ghetto

In the fabulous world of Suburbia, there exists such a thing as "Waste and Sanitation" fees. Apparently I pay them monthly in my mortgage payment - so be it. Now, growing up in Philly, once a week you went through the ritual of placing anything and everything you no longer needed (or wanted anyone to know you had) out to the curb for the big yellow trash truck. It was all taken - no questions asked.

I now venture into my third year of Surburban living. One thing I cannot stand is lazy trash guys - I can says guys, right? Ever see a trash woman? I haven't, so I will say guys. Currently at my curb is the remains of an old Dell server - 4U in size - and stripped down to nothing but the chasis and power supplies. It's rather light. The problem is that my fabulous township believes in "Large Item Pickup" days, where you pay an extra fee to have big pieces of trash picked up. Fine - things like furniture, etc - I get it. But Holy F'n $hit! This is part of a computer. One trash guy actually picked it up, decided it was too heavy, and put it back on the curb! (That was two weeks ago). Last week, it must have been invisible - my bad - I put the invisible coating on my trash. This week I will place the thing into the truck myself.

I did call the "supervisor" - a middle-aged man with a very limited vocabulary, and a poor understanding of logic. I asked this man "What constitutes a large pickup?" His reply? "Anything that's too large to put in the truck." WTF? I said "How about weight? Does that play a part?" Response: "Well, if it's over 35 pounds, then you need to have a large pickup." WTF WTF!!! Idiots.

I miss my corrupt municiple trash men.