Officially Technological

Garbage day in the Blackhawk subdivision is stressful. First of all, our neighborhood is one of the old neighborhoods in Fort Wayne. Not really, really old, but old enough that most of the houses have had several owners. All the trees are grown up (except the two that we planted this year in our yard and our neighbors down the street also planted a few too), and you might get the impression that many kids have also grown up there. I mention all this to impress upon you that our neighborhood is a bit in the style of the old-order associations. The association is a little “roll your eyes” kind of controlling. They’re not crazy controlling, but they definitely have standards to adhere to. For an example, a home-owner is not allowed to add-on to their house without getting the plan signed by the association. Sidewalks must be cleared, it has also been “suggested” that exterior lights should be turned on at dusk.

Homeowners in the Blackhawk subdivision are the kind of people who generally keep their homes up. Pretty much the worst thing you’ll see there is random junk laying in people’s backyards (if you have a view into other people’s backyards), or a small smattering of those holiday blow-up things that people put in their front yard. But generally speaking, everyone’s yards are neat, and trim, and most people even weed-whack the edges of their side walk to make the grass straight. And this is exactly to the liking of the association.

You may be wondering what this has to do with garbage day. What could garbage day do to disrupt the quiet solemnity of this organized neighborhood? Would it be ridiculous to say that garbage day is the most stressful day of our week? Is it wrong to wish that garbage day would be reorganized? Perhaps by the association - who can mandate when people are to turn on their lights and how they are to redecorate their homes - should be in charge of garbage day. Maybe I should explain why garbage day is so stressful.

For Northeast Fort Wayne, garbage pick-up is on Wednesdays. I’m not sure what time the trucks leave the land-fill, but I can imagine that it must be pretty early, because they come in to Blackhawk between seven and eight, which either means we’re the first neighborhood on their route or they start very early in the morning. In fact, they have been known to come so early that the nine-to-fivers (like Brian and I) have to take our garbage to the curb the night before. Which frankly, with Tuesday evening activities and such, we hardly ever remember to run the garbage out to the end of the drive. So, on a number of occasions we have missed garbage day all together. Normally, this is no trial to two people (but I can imagine that to have children in diapers it would absolutely critical for the garbage to be taken away every seven days - if not before). But at times it has been an enormous inconvenience. Especially with the amount of redecorating we’ve done. After a few of these times, Brian and I have become very skilled at hearing the dump truck driving down the street in our sleep. We have been known to fly out of bed (mid-dream) and race to the curb with our garbage can and socks in all sorts of weather to beat the truck. Sometimes we do beat the truck, but sometimes by the time the truck is close enough to wake the residents in neighboring houses, it is too late, and we are standing at the end of our drive with a full can of garbage in our socks, and with our hearts thumping against our chests like hearts thump when they are woken from a sweet sleep to be exercised mercilessly.

After the dump truck goes through, the neighborhood looks like a garbage can massacre. Cans are turned on their sides, or upside-down. Often they are left sprawled across the drives. Sometimes they’re clutching precariously to the edge of the curb as though they may fall into the road at any moment. Our normally peaceful subdivision with its unassuming grown trees and happy children skipping to the school bus is left looking like a garbage can war-zone in which our garbage cans have definitely lost the good fight.

So, perhaps it’s time for a garbage revolution. A new regime, so to speak. A removal (no pun intended) of the old system and the implementation of a new system. So, perhaps in the upcoming mayoral election I’ll vote “garbage reform”.