Yatter Matters

The lingering effect of the local civic strike removed the leash on schedules. Some Vancouver civic workers seem confused from all the time they walked the line. While I welcome them back, I can’t recall a time when so many street sweepers, white recycling and garbage trucks growled on the streets. The advancing trucks snarl as they wind their way through the lanes superseding the neighbor’s (they live 5 doors down), yelping terriers.

Schedule - What Schedule?

Is this the day? Will tomorrow be better? As good citizens we try to follow the pretty colored map schedule the city supplies telling us when and where to put our garbage out for pick up, but it appears to be out of sync. The truck activity bares no relation to the schedule supplied. It smells of chaos.

Failure-to-Secure

In the interim it’s comedy at its civic best. We neighbors dutifully place our blue boxes, yellow bags, garden refuse bins and garbage bins on the X that marks the spot in our lanes for scheduled pick up. Alas, even with all the trucks, the end of the day witnesses some change or no change - bins and blue boxes are partially emptied or still full. Curious! Naturally, the mistake is assumed as ours - sorry. All the trucks had given us false hope that there would be room for our stuff. Being a betting man I was sure that complete service was on Thursday. Wrong! So with empty pockets saddened hearts and fearful purpose, we all lug our half empty bins back to security behind closed gates. Not because we are worried that anyone will steal it. Please take all you want! Rather, we do this to thwart random pet lovers from stealing our garbage bandwidth. Failure-to-secure invariably brings unwanted presents. You know the kind, the still steaming doggy-dodo variety delicately placed on top for full sensory appreciation. I’m told this is considered a feature of living in the big city.

The gift of appreciation does bring comfort in knowing that at least the dogs, are on schedule.