My Garbage

I am embarrassed of my garbage. I know, it sounds like a weird thing to say but it's true.

We are still new enough to this neighborhood that I still feel like we are constantly being judged by the old ladies and their binoculars sitting behind their curtains. I imagine them eating crackers and talking to the cat: "Oh, those new people are so filthy." Crunch, munch crunch. Bitches.

Normally I try to make the garbage we take out very tidy. I dread to be known as the person that puts loose stuff out the night before and have it blow over. Don't get me wrong, I'm white trash at heart, but there it's just to much to have a bag of used diapers spill over and sit there in the mush.

Because the garbage men won't pick that shit up and I don't blame them. Their jobs are hard enough without Mr. Dillweed who can't figure out how to use a twist tie.

I believe that a person's garbage says alot about you. Check it out one day, just walk by your neighbors garbage and see if you can make some snap judgements.

Lot of beer bottles--closet alcoholic that probably does porn on the side.

More than 2 cereal boxes--can't cook and is a methhead that craves sugar.

A tube of toothpaste and and old sock--into some really, really freaky stuff that would make the Internet look tame.

25 full black garbage bags, one full garbage can, and 5 kitchen trash bags sitting by the curb---the gross stay at home father of two who just moved to our neighborhood and is probably a registered sex offender.

That's right, 25 black garbage bags and 5 kitchen bags boxed in ever so neatly by the garbage can itself, it would appear that my family is that gross and the little old lady is about to have a stroke as she counted them.

I don't do this every week of course, but this is the second time and one more and it officially becomes a pattern. The first time was when trimmed all my monstrous trees in the backyard. What I thought had to be giant sequoias turned out to be nothing more than a tall twig.

This time it was because I finally got my lazy ass down in the basement (still creepy) and broke down all the boxes and the paper that was in them. We have 50 boxes and all were filled with packing paper. I thought for a while that we would recycle them but then I remembered that I'm really not that good of a person and I only recycle when people watch me. As no one was watching and most of you don't know where I live, fuck it, I'll admit that I got tired of the fire hazard and just decided to throw it all away to the landfill to be dealt with by future generations. You could say that it is my legacy to my children.

It's tough getting that much garbage stacked neatly on the little space between the sidewalk and the street. I don't want to actually block the sidewalk, that's just rude and I don't want to actually put any bags on the actual street. I take full responsibility for my trash and that means it stays on my very brown yard that would probably be green if I paid as much attention to it as I do my garbage.

I tried stacking them in pyramids of 5 but I wasn't happy with the feng shui and the aura. Then I lined it up in a very nice row but discoed that 25 bags stretched end to end would circle the globe five times over and therefore end up in my neighbor's yard, making them judge me even more.

Finally, I did a very symmetrical pattern 2 deep with a space between every 4th one. I felt that this design said look at that guy, he's obviously responsible, I bet he recycles.

I put it out the night before because I knew there was no way that I was going to get up early enough to beat the garbage man to the street. They only come once a week and if I missed this week I would have a cardiac arrest by next week with the shock of the extra garbage and the little old lady judgement. It was almost like I snuck it out in the middle of the night.

When we got up at 7:00am the garbage was still there. Most times the garbage men come that early but they appeared to be running slow. I believe it is because they also judge me because I bet my garbage is stinkier than most. Lots of diapers in this house.

By 7:30 I was looking out the window every 5 minutes to see if it was picked up yet. No go. But I was lucky enough to see each and everyone of my neighbors leave for work and drive by my house and look at my massive amount of garbage. Some even slowed down.

7:45, no luck. 7:50, just me and the dogs. 8:00 and now the second wave of morning commuters are starting to drive by. It's at this point that I consider popping a Xanex to deal with my pending panic attack. It's funny, I'm a guy that usually doesn't give a crap what a lot of people think about me. I quit my job and took a very nontraditional role as a house husband, a kept man, the child rearing gimp. But the garbage makes me anxious.

8:30 finally comes and the garbage men finally arrive to take away my shame but not before the little old cat talking ladies activated their phone tree to let everyone know about the new guy douchebag and his 25 bags of garbage. If they break a hip I hope it hurts.