Big Pick Up Day

Living in my new city, in a house, with a regular garbage can and pick up schedule has been most interesting. I have learned that there truly is an art to the waste removal system, as well as many particular rules. Husband has always lived with a city waste removal, but growing up in the country, we burned cardboard or things that could be burned...I mean there were things that couldn't be burned, but we tried to burn them anyway. We tried the compost bin for awhile, but it was short lived considering that we had it pretty far from the house to keep the smell and flies away. My mother could only handle saving egg shells and cantaloupe seeds for so long.

Since we can't burn big things of cardboard in the city, and since there are those other big things that just won't fit in a city garbage can there is a special day each spring called "Big Pick Up" day for those big items that aren't typically allowed to be put out by the curb for the garbage dudes. We had our old screen door that we have been saving to put out for this special pick up day, so Husband was excited to make some more room in the garage. He hauled everything out around sunset, as the neighbors on our street were dragging piles of garbage to the side of the curb.

As he was getting things in order, Husband called for me to come and look at the spectacle on the street. He warned me about the "mound people" that would come and look through every one's garbage pile on this special night. Every year he would watch these people go through the pile that his family would put out on the street. He told me that one year there was an old pogo stick that they wanted to throw out. They watched a man sift through their things, and reaching the pogo stick, he jumped on to test it out before placing it with his other treasures in the back of a pick up truck. The spectacle on our block was the U-Haul trailer that someone was pulling behind a pick up and it was filled with items that had been found by the curbside.

I told him that these were the "mound people" from Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. In the novel, there are people that sift through the mounds of garbage in hopes of finding treasures that can be washed off and used or sold for a profit. It is their livelihood. We didn't have anything "good" to put out this year, just the old door and some huge boxes that wouldn't be taken on a regular garbage day.

On our way home from errands last night, we saw a pick up truck with the blinkers on, stalled by the side of the road. An individual was looking through the piles on the curb with a flashlight. Husband said that we wouldn't have to worry about our pile being smaller, since we only had boxes and the useless door. When pulled up to our house, I told him that our pile was smaller. He didn't believe me, but I told him that the door was gone. He made me stop the car short of the garage so that he could get out to check our pile. He was in disbelief when he searched in the dark for the screen door. Disbelief turned into shock, as Husband paced around the garage and the sidewalk, looking up and down the street for someone who could have been foolish enough to take our old door. We decided that the city doesn't even need to send out the garbage guys to pick things up, but just post that it is a city wide put what you don't want on the curb and people will remove it for you.

Husband became happy about the situation as the evening wore on. He realized that someone found value in his junky door, and it was helpful for them as well as for us to move things on to someone who could use the door at no charge.