The Daily Trash Removal

My original plan was to find something to be thankful for each month, something specific to life here. These are interesting words that just came from my head through my fingers to you - find something to be thankful for. I need to chew on that for a while.

Now that I'm done with my sage moment, I have decided that I cannot wait until February to share this thankful thing. Trash pickup. Yes, daily trash pickup from my front door.

As a child I lived in a city that had the potential of being overrun by garbage bears.

In order to protect our town from just such an epidemic, we could not put our garbage out on the street until around 3 am (4am?) the day of garbage pick up. Said pickup happened once a week. So the garbage collected every week either in the garage or outside in a secure area. In my family's case, the garbage collected in the garage. Imagine with me, if you will, fridge clean out day. You open the fridge and realize there is something dwelling in it that could very soon grow legs and walk out on its own. You remove all old items in order to remove the offender. And you realize that the trash was picked up yesterday. So now all that smelliness must sit in your garage for the next 6 days. And it's not winter...it's summer. The hottest week on record.

Now put yourself in my current place. I realize there is an offender in my fridge (today - the special cheese I forgot to eat). I remove the offender to the garbage, tie up the bag, and put the bag out front of my apartment door in the hallway. In a few short hours the building janitor will come around to collect the trash, like he does everyday. He will put the trash outside on the street. Tonight at 9 the trash guys will come and remove the trash from the street. No collected smells, no dreaded trips to the garage (which, of course, I do not have).

Yes, I am thankful for daily trash pickup.