Gotta Love the Garbage Men!!

I just LOVE the garbage men! They makes me so happy! No, I don’t have some secret attraction for the garbage truck or the men who ride it. I know this is a choice they’ve made in their lives for an occupation, and while I would NEVER want to pursue such an occupation, I am happy that they have made that choice. It takes great guts and fortitude to ride a smelly truck all day long, particularly in the blistering stagnant summer days in Houston. I am just so grateful that they are willing to pick up MY garbage. They even do it twice a week!
I’ve been to third world countries where they leave their garbage lying out on the street. When I was in the Philippines, the trash lined the streets almost waist high. Pretty disgusting, to be sure. I’m SO happy that when I have smelly cantaloupe rinds or shrimp peels, I can put them out with the trash and they are gone within a few hours. I even put out our basketball pole one day that one of Lorie’s darling boy “friends” knocked over in a macho gesture to slam dunk the ball. I watched them put that thing in and gradually it crumbled up as the crusher pulled it in and was gone from my house.
I’m even happier that they are picking up my garbage most days before 10:00 in the morning (in fact they’re going by even as I write). They used to not pick up our trash until 2:00 or 3:00 or even 4:00 in the afternoon, and then we really did have to watch what we put our trash in, because if we left out our trash in just plastic bags, the crows and cats and other varmints would come foraging for food, and we would come home to a ripped up plastic bag and trash strewn across our yard.
The big struggle was when they decided to start coming by at 7:45 or 8:00 AM. We woke up one morning to the sound of the garbage truck going into our cul-de-sac street. We had to jump out of our beds, throw on something decent, grab our trash bags and run them out to the street before the truck came back out our cul-de-sac and picked up the trash on our side of the street. There were even a couple of times that we had to take our trash across Park Shadow’s Trail to the other side of Roaring Rapids Dr. and subtly slip our trash next to the Parish’s or Stojanik’s trash. Just like Pavlov and his dogs, though, we learned not to do that more than once!
The garbage men have taught me a great lesson in preparedness. I get up early on trash days (because I wouldn’t want to put my trash out the night before to become food for all the critters around here) and put my trash out. Then, no matter when the trash man comes, I just smile when I hear them drive down my street, because I know all my trash is out of my house and I’m not scrambling around. It gives me great peace and happiness.
I think about the ant and the grasshopper...how the ant prepared for the winter months while the grasshopper played. Then when the cold and winds came, the ant was safe and warm in his cozy home while the grasshopper was out in the cold, forced to forage food and shelter. I don’t want to be “out in the cold” preparing for sudden catastrophic or unexpected events to come. I prefer the peace that comes from being prepared, having my ducks in a row, having the trash out on trash day. Thanks for the lesson, Mr. Garbage man!!