I live in a small town smack in the middle of Washington {the state}.  When people think of Washington they think of Seattle and rain and Starbucks and Eddie Vedder {yep, he’s still yummy.  don’t care what you think.}  My town is the opposite of all that.  Like  magnets doing that weird polar trick they can do.  Seattle would push my town right off the refrigerator because it’s just that opposite.

When we lived in Seattle, we had to micro-manage our trash and wash it up all nice and tidy and then properly divide it into 3 categories and 14 sub-categories so as to keep the trash cops off our ass.  Then we moved to this little gem of a town and we could just throw our glass in with our newspaper and then sprinkle it all with a  little bit of #4 plastic coated with spaghetti sauce and no one cared a bit.

It was freaking garbage freedom!

Today was garbage pick-up day.  Long before the loud collection trucks came ’round I heard a strange ruckus out in the street.  {Lest you forget, Gladys Kravitz inhabits my body from time to time so I had to check it out.}  I peer out the window and what should I see but two Hispanic gentlemen tossing a shit-load of various sized teflon tumblers all throughout the streets.   What the hell?

Then I see it.  The bright blue top glaring at me from it’s cozy new home on my curb.  What the shit?!?!

Ladies and gentlemen, garbage freedom died today.

My former – larger than life, fit a Christmas tree, bicycle and three weeks worth of trash in one receptacle – garbage can has been reduced to a “yard waste” canister.  Taking its place is a “recycling bin” about half its size, plus a garbage container that the can under my kitchen sink could take on.  This poses a few problems.

I.  Where in the holy shit am I supposed to store this family of receptacles?  Maybe I can sell one of our cars to make room in the driveway.

B.  How much money am I going to have to spend on indoor receptacles to keep this shit sorted?  Well, at least I”ll have the car money to invest.

#3.  Most Importantly:  Who, around this joint, has time to wash the fucking garbage?!?!

I moved to this rural, “smells like cow shit 70% of the time, no PF Chang’s” town so that I could lump all my garbage into one big, fat dumpster and sleep peacefully at night.  {How am I supposed to do my part to save the Earth without one of those nifty blue recycle bins to organize my garbage with?  What are you gonna do about that Leo DiCaprio?}

Dammit!  Dammit all  straight to hell.

And what?  What IF I don’t wanna do it?   What if I  just put my Styrofoam peanuts and pizza boxes and plastic bottles and junk mail all in the yard waste bin?  Huh?  What’s gonna happen then?

Bring it on, Al Gore.  Bring it freaking ON!