Garbage, Garbage, Garbage

I didn’t believe it would happen even when we were warned. After many diligent nights retrieving our trash can from the street just as the garbage truck passed by, we waited too long. The garbage truck comes by each night to pick up garbage. Is it green tonight or black? We always ask each other as the colored cans are picked on alternate days. Green is for, we think, compost material, while black is for all other trash. Each evening we wait to hear the garbage truck coming, much like an ice cream truck. Click here to hear download the garbage truck song on MP3! Once they come close enough, we drag our can out onto the sidewalk. Now, you are supposed to quickly rescue your can immediately after the garbage men empty it. From the first day, we were told that if you are too slow, your trash can we will be stolen. And so, one night, we waited too long. The moment we remembered we needed to fetch our garbage can, it was gone!

Why would someone do that? Take our trash can? For the next few weeks we secretly put our bags of trash into the trash cans of our neighbors. Not a big problem. Others take their trash to public trash cans on the streets. We thought we would have to do this for the remainder of our stay in this apartment and then pay for the lost garbage can. Last week, we were heading out of the house for church, when I opened up the door and there was our black garbage can! How did it get here? Not just outside our gate, but right next to our front door. Insider work….either someone from our apartment building found it, or it was them who needed our garbage can for awhile. We are grateful to have it back…!