I Discovered the Source of Litter

Today was trash day here in 46203. Indy’s Department of Public Works sent out their men and trucks to do the Lord’s work.

For years as I worked during the day and made the habit of bringing the trash to the curb in a trash can and coming home to retrieve it, I often had to go fetch the can out of the middle of the street or in the neighbor’s yard. I always just thought, “The wind must have blown it over there.”

Then, for a while, the mailman would leave nasty notes in my box saying things like “Please allow clearance near your mailbox for the postal worker.” When it would snow and the plows shoved snow up under the box and trash day would roll around I’d get two nasty notes. One calling me a loser for not allowing clearance and another calling me out for a failure to remove snow. Despite the fact that there was no time to deal with either.

Today, on trash day, I have learned the source of all the world’s litter: shoddy trash men. I had this vision in my head that a trash truck quietly rolls along the street and two appropriately dressed men would climb down calmly, pick up my trash receptacle with two hands, give it a good lift and shake it to bring out the trash. Then, they would look inside to make sure it’s empty and proceed to gingerly set it down where I left it on the corner slab of my driveway that was almost made just for such a trash can.

That is not how the scene works in reality.

Instead, when the trash men come rolling by and the noisy truck pulls along, they just hop off the back and toss trash around like a sack of potatoes. Except, you can’t treat trash bags like sacks of potatoes. The result is a bunch of trash just laying around the street and curb after bags break and crap falls out. I sit here at the house now that I’m self-employed and watch the trash guys handle my trash can like it was a nerd getting a swirly. Then, as the guy is walking the other direction he does a process I can only describe as “letting it go”. The trash can just sorta flails around like a beached whale for a while in the middle of the street.

Since trash pickup comes at 11:30 and the mailman comes at 12, the trash can will eventually lodge itself under the mailbox in such a way to strategically piss off the mailman.

The result is a trash-laden curb and nasty notes in my mailbox.

Dear Kitty Litter Companies

Today, while grocery shopping, I remembered that I needed kitty litter. I wandered over to the pet supplies and picked up my usual bucket of Fresh Step cat litter with carbon. I’ve tried every major brand of cat litter — every one of them. From the useless shards of paper posing as useful and effective to Fresh Step with Carbon, which is hands down the best litter out there.

I have two cats. They poop a lot. Into the cat litter. When I empty the litter boxes, I have a nifty little process:

1. Scoop out the clumps
2. Put clumps into old, empty, bucket of cat litter
3. Scoop new litter out of new bucket into litter boxes
4. Set old bucket, when full of clumps, by curb for trash man

This may seem odd, but it works very well. The rate the old bucket fills up is precisely the same as the rate the new bucket is depleted. The buckets are hard plastic, they have handles so it’s easy to carry the full, and heavy, buckets away. More importantly, they have lids I can snap back shut when it’s time to throw them away. I’m sure the trash man is happier for it. Heck, every time I’ve moved, I’ve actually moved the old bucket of cat litter with me. The movers thought it was weird, but I didn’t want to throw away the only half-full bucket of used litter.

Today, when buying my cat litter, I noticed a sticker on the top that read “COMING SOON! NEW LOOK!” Now, I hate new looks. I’m still mad they put Pepsi and ketchup in plastic bottles instead of glass bottles. I loathe plastic bottles. I don’t like the feel of them. I might as well be sleeping with a styrofoam cube, which is just as annoying to me as nails on a chalkboard.

So, naturally, I read the sticker on the lid and it said Fresh Step was going to divert all their packaging to cardboard boxes. Useless, shitty cardboard boxes useful for nothing else except transporting a bunch of litter from the store to the house. I can’t even get my measuring cup into a cardboard box. Shitty, shitty boxes. Pun intended.

Soon, I won’t be able to  put my used litter clumps into a resealable container. Instead, I’ll be forced to put them in a bag and I will literally have to drag bags of shit to the curb for the trash man. Where, he’ll no doubt pick them up and become covered in little clumps of used litter.

So, to the fine people at Fresh Step, for the love of all that is worthwhile in this world, keep the plastic buckets and leave the cardboard boxes to cheap people that don’t know better. Otherwise, you might as well be taking a dump on our beloved trash collectors.

Thanks,

Justin