Trashlicious

In Portland, we have four (4) trash/recycling containers: Muted green for trash, blue for "recyclabes", a bright green for yard waste, and a small, yellow container for glass. Frankly, I'm shocked we aren't asked to separate the different colors of glass. And I'm not being facetious.

We haven't quite figured out the trash pickup routine yet, even after 10 weeks of it. We were told by neighbors that glass pickup is on Wednesday morning and everything else Thursday morning, but then Ann phoned the company who told us that no, Thursday, everything is picked up, so make certain to cart our stuff out Wednesday evening.

Well, some Thursdays, one of the (random) containers sits untouched and remains full. And other weeks, they just don't show up at all. But they've been fairly consistent.

One of the more fascinating aspects about trash day (I can almost see you all perched on the edge of your chairs) are the recyclabes collectors. Routinely, we hear the clanging of empty glass containers bouncing about in shopping carts. This is a veritable army of glass collecting-hobbyists who descend on our trash like Lindsay Lohan on a new sexual identity (I worked real hard coming up with that one, folks). Thing is, they aren't the predictable homeless every time. Our first week, two college-age preppy "dudes" nabbed our stuff (beer money, we assumed). And now, not 3 minutes after I put the containers out front, I'm watching a middle aged Latino man who looks like he might have been playing chess in a park a few hours ago dig through our glass. All I can assume he's thinking is, "Damn, you people like beer."

That and, "King takes rook seven."