The ultimate sin
Someone call the trash police-- I did something naughty!
Household trash is collected twice a week (Tuesday and Friday) in our neighborhood. All trash must be put in the official Basel-Stadt blue bags (Bebbi-Saggs) which can be purchased (at a high price) at the grocery store. Trash collection is a serious business here. You only put household trash in these bags, not recycling products. And you certainly don't put big items out on the curb thinking the nice garbage men will just take them away. No way. Take them to the dump (also known as my new favorite place in town)!
For some reason, they never pick up the trash on our street until around noon. That has always seemed strange to me. Doesn't it seem like trash should be picked up at 7:00 or 8:00 am? Anyway, there's really no hurry to put it out first thing in the morning, although I do generally get it to the curb by 9:00. Today, however, was the big exception. I had to run to OBI this morning to buy some big plastic storage containers for another one of my nesting projects, and I got started on my organizing right away this morning. By the time I took the trash out it was about 10:30. I had three bags today, which is highly unusual, but I've been cleaning the basement so I had a lot of junk. Imagine my surprise when I got out to the curb and saw that there were NO blue bags on our street! The trash people came early today and I had missed their pickup! What to do?! What to do?!
An hour or so later, while walking Grady, I noticed that there were still plenty of blue bags on one of the streets just a couple blocks away from our house. My mind went to work right away. I see an opportunity to get rid of my stinky garbage, I thought...
So after dropping Grady off at home, I threw the three Bebbi-Saggs in the back of the car, and drove around on the streets where trash had not yet been collected until I found a good spot to pull over. I was careful to pick a place in which there were plenty of trees separating me from the houses in order to lessen my chances of prying eyes spotting me out their kitchen window. I left the car running, put it in park, quickly threw the bags to the curb and sped off. I felt like such a renegade! I'm quite sure that some nosy old lady was watching somewhere probably writing down my license plate numbers so she can call the police. The fact that I feel even a little bit guilty about this trash violation tells me that I've been living in Switzerland too long.
I'm also reminded of the time several years ago when my Mom went driving around Madison until she found a neighborhood that was having trash pickup that morning so that she could dump her trash on someone's curb. I think she and my Dad were going out of town or something, and my Dad had just cleaned a bunch of fish to eat for dinner the night before (he was a big fisherman) and they didn't want to leave stinky fish guts around our house while they went on a trip. Looks like I inherited this naughty streak from my very own mother...
Household trash is collected twice a week (Tuesday and Friday) in our neighborhood. All trash must be put in the official Basel-Stadt blue bags (Bebbi-Saggs) which can be purchased (at a high price) at the grocery store. Trash collection is a serious business here. You only put household trash in these bags, not recycling products. And you certainly don't put big items out on the curb thinking the nice garbage men will just take them away. No way. Take them to the dump (also known as my new favorite place in town)!
For some reason, they never pick up the trash on our street until around noon. That has always seemed strange to me. Doesn't it seem like trash should be picked up at 7:00 or 8:00 am? Anyway, there's really no hurry to put it out first thing in the morning, although I do generally get it to the curb by 9:00. Today, however, was the big exception. I had to run to OBI this morning to buy some big plastic storage containers for another one of my nesting projects, and I got started on my organizing right away this morning. By the time I took the trash out it was about 10:30. I had three bags today, which is highly unusual, but I've been cleaning the basement so I had a lot of junk. Imagine my surprise when I got out to the curb and saw that there were NO blue bags on our street! The trash people came early today and I had missed their pickup! What to do?! What to do?!
An hour or so later, while walking Grady, I noticed that there were still plenty of blue bags on one of the streets just a couple blocks away from our house. My mind went to work right away. I see an opportunity to get rid of my stinky garbage, I thought...
So after dropping Grady off at home, I threw the three Bebbi-Saggs in the back of the car, and drove around on the streets where trash had not yet been collected until I found a good spot to pull over. I was careful to pick a place in which there were plenty of trees separating me from the houses in order to lessen my chances of prying eyes spotting me out their kitchen window. I left the car running, put it in park, quickly threw the bags to the curb and sped off. I felt like such a renegade! I'm quite sure that some nosy old lady was watching somewhere probably writing down my license plate numbers so she can call the police. The fact that I feel even a little bit guilty about this trash violation tells me that I've been living in Switzerland too long.
I'm also reminded of the time several years ago when my Mom went driving around Madison until she found a neighborhood that was having trash pickup that morning so that she could dump her trash on someone's curb. I think she and my Dad were going out of town or something, and my Dad had just cleaned a bunch of fish to eat for dinner the night before (he was a big fisherman) and they didn't want to leave stinky fish guts around our house while they went on a trip. Looks like I inherited this naughty streak from my very own mother...
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