Small town life

(Alternate title, “Who Knew?”)

I’m sure this will be of little interest to anyone. But I’m going to post it anyway.

Heck, it’s been a slow day for post topics around here.

(Ahem.) I called the City of Victoria Solid Waste Department (trash pickup) this morning. A very nice lady answered. I explained about my garage-ful of trash from the attic cleanup, and asked if there were limits to how much volume or weight the garbage men would collect on a given pick-up day.

Without answering my question, she began to ask her own questions to get a better idea of the volume of trash, the weight of individual pieces (“Can our men lift it, or do they need power equipment?”), and what the pieces consisted of. I got the impression that they would haul away just about anything from boxes to appliances to automobiles.

After I described the trash in detail, she decided she’d better schedule a special pick-up date rather than “bog down” the haulers on their regular pick-up day. She asked me if I could have all the trash out by the street in a big pile by 8:00 a.m. Wednesday.

As in the day after tomorrow?! (I figured they would “schedule a pick up” sometime in April, if I was lucky.)

I told her, “Sure! We’ll have it ready.” Then I asked, “Is there a fee or a charge for this special pick-up?”

You see, Carol had not wanted to wait for weeks to have the garage cleared out and had called a local hauling business to ask how much they wanted to haul our junk to the dump landfill. They told her, “We charge $150.00 per load.” She thanked them and told them we’d let them know.

Ah, but my friendly lady at the City of Victoria Solid Waste Department informed me, “No, there’s no charge. It’s a service we provide.”

Well, all right then!

So tonight we rest, but tomorrow night before bed we will drag all those boxes and other containers out to the street and line them up. I leave the house for work by 6:00 a.m., and I sure don’t want to be dragging all that stuff out there before I drive to the office. (Besides, Carol wouldn't be up then to help me!)

Hopefully, by the time I get home Wednesday evening the pile will be gone.

I wonder if our larger cities do this, or if it’s unique to smaller towns.

Regardless, it’s pretty nice to see my tax dollars at work like this!