the-hills.org

We've been living in our house for 10+ years now. One of the joys of home ownership is disposing of old stuff. Of course, there are lots of options for things we no longer need or want that are still in decent shape, like donating them to a charity, or finding a friend who might be able to use them. For items that aren't in great shape, though, we've sometimes chosen to simply toss them out with the garbage.

This is great, except that where we live, there are all kinds of regulations about what you can throw away. The newest of these is that it must fit in the gargantuan trash container that the city graciously delivered to our house several months ago. Things like couches, lawn mowers, and treadmills won't fit in the huge container, and are subject to rules. For example, if I want to dispose of a treadmill, I must break it down into sections no larger than 3' x 3', and no piece may way more than 50 lbs. Sadly, this is not as easy as it sounds.

When I was considering my options months ago, I began to reflect over all of the items I had disposed of in the past. It seemed that I had disposed of many large, toxic, or generally unsafe and inconvenient items in the past without being aware of all the regulations. I thought that I must have had exceptionally liberal garbage persons attending to my neighborhood for the past 10 years. I was exceedingly grateful for how helpful they had been. In fact, I was considering leaving them a $20 bill one day, except that I was afraid it'd go unnoticed somehow, and end up at the dump.

Then, early one morning, on garbage day, I discovered the Trash Fairy. I was headed out for my morning run, when I saw an unfamiliar truck driving through the neighborhood with an open-air trailer hitched on. I saw the driver get out, pick up one of the large items that someone had left by the curb, and place it into his trailer. At that point, I understood what had happened to all of my large, undesirable items. I was impressed by the kindness of this person, that he was taking the items that the garbage collectors wouldn't take. My esteem for the person was not even diminished when I realized later that, if he's handy, he could possibly repair some items that I would consider broken, and that even for things that can't be repaired, or aren't worth trying to sell, if they contain a large amount of metal, there's a scrap metal market that could bring him in some money.

What I'm really happy about is that the things I don't want to keep are going away quickly, and with a minimum of effort on my part. Last night, I had another large item to discard, and brought it down to the curb along with my garbage. When I left for work this morning, as usual, it was already gone. This item was made completely of metal, and so I was confident that the Trash Fairy would enjoy it. Today, I'd like to thank the Trash Fairy, whoever you are. You have my sincere appreciation.

Also, I'd like to apologize for calling you a fairy. I mean that in the most non-offensive way possible, and chose the term because of the manner in which you perform your work: you arrive during the night, or in the early morning hours, and are gone before most of us have ventured outside our houses.