hodgepodge

We are American. We generate a lot of garbage. A lot. It is sometimes embarrasing. We recycle everything we can (aluminum or tin cans are not recycled here) and we have a very small garbage can. Think kitchen-sized, to put out on the street. Consequently, we are continually putting out an overflowing can with additional bags nestled adjacent to the can on the street. Strike two for the Hluboká Hillbillies. (see this post
http://alifenarrated.blogspot.com/2011/01/oops.html?spref=bl) As I look out onto the street, everyone else's cans are closed and neatly lining the narrow stone sidewalk. Ours looks like it should come with its own "Deuling Banjoes" soundtrack. On this particular humiliating day, we remembered at the last possible minute that it was a state holiday. A state holiday falling on garbage day. This rarely happens for us and I couldn't remember the protocol. Do we put the can out? Is it collected the next day? Is it collected the next week? All of our neighbors' cans looked empty as if we had missed garbage day, as if they had known something we didn't. Maybe they picked up the garbage the day before the state holiday and we didn't know. I was superemely tempted to lift up our neighbours' lids to check if there was garbage underneath.  Fuzzily lurking in the back of my brain was some snippet of a memory recalling a time when this happened previously as well as another memory of sadness. From this obscure puzzle I knocked together the thought which produced the words, "They won't pick up the garbage until next week!". Our can was again full to overflowing with the ubiquitous extra bags strewn beside it. A testament to our excess. I couldn't imagine waiting another week to have our garbage picked up. What would we do with it all? So my brilliant idea was to haul all of our garbage to the corner at the end of our street where errant or oversized trash goes. I can only imagine what our neighbours were thinking as the entire Coyan clan set out armed with full to bursting garbage bags in each hand. Laying them on the corner like a gang of hillbillies and then heading home. It was only moments later that I saw our neighbour put a full bag into his can and realized that they would still pick up the garbage as normal, holiday notwithstanding. Then the dilemma was worse. Do we march back up the street and retrieve our bags in full view of the neighbours as if we had just dropped our garbage off on a play date with the recycling? Or do we just hide in our house for the rest of our natural lives? What would you have done?...write about it in a comment...




cartoon courtesy of:
http://www.nataliedee.com/