Talking Trash

Last year on the Friday morning before Christmas, I got up super-early. I made a big pot of coffee, put it in a hot-pot, and set it – with cream and sugar, and a batch of my somewhat famous, freshly-baked breakfast cookies – on a TV tray I placed just a few feet from my trash cans in the alley.

It was trash day, and I wanted to do something special for the folks on that giant blue truck who, week after week, haul away the mountains of stuff I throw out.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans generate an additional one billion pounds of trash and food waste between Thanksgiving and Christmas. At least we recycle most of the cardboard boxes from all those online gift orders, but much of the rest of it ends up in the garbage can.

So, the trash pickup crews are working harder than ever, when the weather is at its worst.

After the big truck had rolled by, I ran out to retrieve the coffee pot – only to see the tray hadn’t been touched. I was so disappointed!

My sister, visiting for the holidays, pointed out that the alley is dark…the tray is a lot shorter than the trash bins…and the guys most likely didn’t even see it.

You’ll be glad to know we didn’t waste it. We poured ourselves some coffee, ate the cookies and had a good laugh about my best intentions gone awry.

This year, maybe I’ll just tape some tip money to the trash cans.