Green Tuesday

Tuesday is trash and recycling pickup day at our house. I never gave much thought to the trash/recycling pickup, as I'm sure most of us don't, since all it really requires is dragging some bins to the curb for emptying. Well, not at my house, oh no.

I began to notice some strange "rearranging" early on, but never questioned it because hey, what do I care as long as my waste doesn't end up in the local landfill? After a few weeks of random recyclables showing up in my bin (strangely while my own were missing) the mystery was somewhat solved.

My parents were visiting, and my dad is an über recycler/trash picker-upper/composter extraordinaire. He has always asked that I save my aluminum cans for him (I'm a Diet Dr. Pepper junkie) because he turns them in for profit in Winston-Salem. I must interject here that dear Kendall is not trying to make a buck off of our carbonated addictions, but he is merely getting a small reimbursement for helping to clean up our surroundings.

So, back to the explanation. My dad was in town and had picked up a few cans roadside. Strange man approached my dad and practically forced him to hand over the aluminum, while proclaiming that he is the neighborhood "recycling captain."

I admit I have never attended a neighborhood or Home Owners Association meeting, but I get enough mail to fill me in on the rules and regulations and I can assure you there are no "recycling captains."

Perhaps I shouldn't really complain, since Strange man takes it upon himself to mow my lawn with his own lawnmower (and gas), even though I have a perfectly capable lawnmower. Had he not destroyed some of my projects that were drying on my front porch (yes, they were made out of cardboard, but you would think that to MOST people the objects weren't recycling) I would probably be singing his praises.

However, he recently terrified a group of my friends, at my house for a party, by weed whacking with a bit too much zeal and no communication with bystanders. Some of them compared him to Leatherface.  Jeez.