The Secret, Magical Meeting

By nature, I am not really an obsessive person. Sure, I obsess about random little things from time to time, but I obsess and then I'm done. For some strange, whacked out reason, of all the things I could truly obsess about in my life, I choose to obsess about trashday almost every week. What do you think Dr. Phil would have to say about that?

Trashday in our neighborhood is Wednesday. When we first moved here, making sure the trash got put out was HUGE because we had so much rubbish from the move that our garage was quickly filling up. When you need to get two cars, all of your belongings and a bunch of broken down empty boxes crammed into your garage, trashday can't come soon enough. We quickly learned that it was imperative to put our trash out Tuedsay night, regardless of the weather outside, because the trash collector would often be here and gone in the 5 o'clock hour (a.m. that is). As you know from a previous post (see: Trashcanpalooza), I've had trashcans full of stinky stuff blow away in the wind in the name of having my trash disposed of.

As spring approached, people started talking more and more about bears (no, we haven't seen any yet). The HOA has made a huge deal about the fact that you shouldn't put your trashcans out until the morning, for fear that bears will scavenge. So, in the name of appeasing our neighbors, on Tuesday nights I have been sleeping like crap, worrying that I won't wake up early enough to get the trash out. As soon as the clock would hit 4:30 a.m., I was running outside to get the trash to the street before the trash man came. The odd thing was...I would be up at 4:30 putting my trash out, but none of the neighbors were up dragging their trash out! One morning I decided to pay a little extra attention to my neighbors, I was going to see what time they all take their trash out. I noticed that as they were leaving for work, they would just take the trash to the curb and would go on their merry way. They weren't sleeping like crap, nor were they waking up at 4:00! HEY!!!!!!!!!! At what point did the trash man decide to start coming to pick up trash later in the morning? Apparantly when you're new to the neighborhood you don't get that memo!

I guess on some magical Wednesday morning, on some secret spring day, the trash collectors decide that they will pick up trash later in the morning. Do ya' think somebody could have said something? Now that I have zero faith in my neighbors, I'm presented with another dreadful trash dilema...holidays! You see, Monday was Memorial Day. Back in CA, if Monday is a holiday, your trashday is delayed by one day that week. Today is Wednesday, is there going to be trash pick-up or not? Needless to say, I've been laying in bed with the window open, listening for the sound of the trash truck, obsessing since 6:30 this morning. Was that a trash truck.....no, it was an airplane. Was that the trash truck.....no, it was a motorcycle. Was that the trash truck.... I think you get the picture. Finally, at 8:00 I heard the unmistakeable sound of the trash truck, I ran my garbage out to the curb, and now I sit and wait.

I'm sure we won't get the memo about the magical , secret day in the very near future when the trash man decides he's going to start picking up our trash at 5:00 a.m. again! I guess I can be glad we actually have trash service and I don't have to shlep it all to the dump! Maybe they'll even offer recycling services in Anchorage someday. I won't hold my breathe! I will, however, continue to obsess about our trash every Wednesday morning.