I'm on to you, Mr. Garbage Man

I'm afraid of the garbage man. I'm only sort-of kidding. The grinding of the garbage truck as it slooowly works its way down the alley every Monday and Wednesday morning never fails to jolt me from my slumber. You see, I'm pretty sure they're out to get me. It's a psychological game we're playing, me and Mr. Garbage Man, and it's anyone's guess how it's all going to play out.

Oh, he's playing it all cool now, all Mr. Friendly Banter and "I'll take that from you and deposit it straight into the truck, no prob." But I know what you're up to Mr. Man. I'm one step ahead of you.

See, we live in Chicago, a city that despite the mayor's protests, still seems to run best with a little extra grease. And the garbage truck is no exception. They don't, as a rule, pick up construction trash, but with enough persuasion of the right kind, it seems that they'll back those rigs right up to the garage and you can toss all kinds of contaminated crap into them from your rehab job.

We didn't realize this until too late. Oh, we got dumpsters for the big stuff, but that cardboard, those paint cans, all that rosin paper, well, we figured the city bins were just the place. We didn't, for some reason, get the hint from Mr. Garbage Man when we asked him if he could take away that cardboard refrigerator box ("Well, I'm not really SUPPOSED too....") and we kept on neatly stacking our crap by the cans for them to take away.

Now, as an interjection, let me say that our alley is no dumpster diver's paradise. Don't get me wrong, there's usually at least one couch, a few chairs and other miscellaneous furniture at there at all times next to cans positively overflowing with nasty mess. But noone is putting this couch in the back of their Passat and hauling it home to their loft. This is the last stop, the end of the road, for used couches. My alley is where couches go to die.

So after repeated though subtle overtures from our garbage men, which we naively didn't really acknowledge, we got a $200 fine in the mail for "misuse of our garbage containers." Now, who gets fined for misuse of their garbage containers in Chicago? Only schmos like us who forget to pay the toll.

You can smile all you want, Mr. Garbage Man. I'm on to you.