Trash Day: Antic. and Spying

6 am Thursday. There's a certain excitement in the air. My trash can is out front, and it's going to be picked up.

This is one of my favorite days of the week, which might sound odd. Part of the thrill is the happiness of knowing I'll have an empty trash can to put trash into, but part of it is the waiting. You might think I'm kidding when I say I run to the window when I hear the rumble of the truck. I crawl to the window and spy as the garbage men move like an efficient swat team, quickly drag my can over, lift it into the truck, shove it back into my driveway, leap on the truck, and speed away.

I'm not sure why this excites me. Maybe it's because we didn't have trash pick up where I grew up. I'm sure they had it available, but I don't remember any trash trucks in my neighborhood. I think we all just took our trash to the dump. It's a sort of small county (now it's growing because it's an hour south of DC) so the dump, along with the grocery store and post office, was one of the places you could feasibly bump into someone.

Since it's pitch dark at 6:15, I can't just look out the window; they'll see me. I have to be in a dark room, but near a window on the street side, so I'm sitting in my office, ready to switch off the light when I see them. I wanted to read and write in my sunroom (pitchblackroom) to watch the sunrise, but I had to come here for trash day. I can't have them know I'm watching them, although I did sit on my steps and wave one day. That was when I was on a detective mission for my city's new trash cans. You can read more about that on my other blog, Stamford Talk. The new trash cans were a big saga.

Hold on a sec. I think I hear something.