The case of the blue bin:

It was a hot July day when EDCO (trash disposal service) sidled up to us, slid it's imaginary eyes left and right and muttered out of the corners of it's non-existent mouth, between just as non-real clenched teeth, "Tomorrow, Early. There will be a...delivery. Expect the noisy trucks at dawn."
That wasn't spy talk, the garbage trucks really are noisy and like to do their rumbling business at dawn. But nonetheless a spark of excitement ignited inside me.
How often do the garbage people bring you something?
Take, take take. You'd think they could drop off an old table, a used bookshelf or some broken marionettes (my personal dream) from what I imagine to be a wealth of California garbage, every once in a while.
By the way, there IS a wealth of California garbage. You gotta realize I am from the boooonies. That means the garbage truck came every 2 weeks and if you felt like walking a zillion steps to peer at one, maybe two neighbor's trash you could. But who would wanna? Cause no one throws anything cool away in the boonies. It's completely different than the quick, turn-over apartment lifestyle of a city-ish place in California. I'm almost positive that when people move from apartments around here that 30% of them just toss everything out into the trash area and buy new stuff when they get to where they're going.
And yes, I do enjoy making up statistics....well 72.39% of the time I do.
CONTINUE to keep in mind, I'm from the boonies, and yes I have been to thrift stores and yard sales but there's no use lusting after some dresser or table or what ever even if you did happen to see one whilst browsing cause then you'd have to have your heart broken by leaving it or go through the hassle of finding some one with a big enough vehicle that can haul a broken dresser 40 miles into the woods, up a long dirt drive way and preferably for free.
So imagine my amazement when my first few visits to a California trash area in an apartment complex I feel like I just walked into a thrift store. I back up a couple paces, swing my head left and right, step back into the walled area and behold....chairs......screen doors? Lamps, picture frames, dishes, more chairs, night stands, more screen doors, pipe???? and goodies galore.
I am not ashamed to admit that a helluva a lot of our possessions we have acquired together came from the trash area of an apartment complex. I mean hell, you didn't even need to dumpster dive, the stuff was just sitting there.
2 night stands, hardwood tv stand dresser thingy, 2 lamps, picture frame, 3 chairs, window screen, giant wooden book shelf thingy, quaker oatmeal sign (I kid you not), 4 baskets and a plant stand. I'm sure there's more but I'd have to get up off my chair and run around the house cataloging our possessions and I'm not gonna do that, honesty compels me to admit I'm thrifty AND lazy.
If I could some how clone myself and my doppelganger clone person would obey my every whim then I'd have that alternate self open up a thrift store some day. I swear some one out there could probably make a fortune picking up all the discarded things left for the trash man, maybe refurbishing them and selling them in a "new to you" type second hand store....ahhhh...the dream...cloning I heart you.
Well anyways all of that is to say the garbage man takes, but he never gives...until recently.
That sweet little love note from our local disposal service left my heart all a pitty patter pat patting.
Did I sleep that night?
As anxious as a child on Christmas eve waiting for Santa to go the hell home so they could rip in to their stockings?
Hell no..I mean I didn't sleep, such was my level of excitement. You ever wonder what palpable means? If you'd been near me on this momentous occasion, waiting for the trash trucks to drop off our present you'd have seen the very real excitement I was experiencing...excitement that was truly palpable. You could literally touch my excitement and palpate it, that's how thrilled I was.....maybe...or maybe I'm just hepped up on caffeine again and the ol' exaggeration train has left the station. Now this has gotta be like the millionth blog post I've wrote about trash so I'll leave it to you to figure out...exaggeration train? Or sadly excited Canadian gal living in California with her hottie husband waiting for the trash man to bring her a present.....
It was blue.
It was big and blue and a beauty to behold.
A giant blue recycling bin....oh, don't start shivering with joy yet. It gets better...it had wheels. (Those of you with clever murder-she-wrote type minds has picked up on the use of *had*)
Immediately the first thing I did upon meeting our new company issued recycling bin was raise the lid and sniff inside.
What?
I just wanted to make sure it was as clean and sweet as it looked....and yes...I wanted to get inside...I mean this beauty had wheels, serious business wheels and if I could get my husband to push me around in ol' Blue before we started dumping tin cans and papers in her that would be one of my dreams come true. The dream on my list of dreams that I wish come true, the one that's right under "Find antique marionette for cheap or free" and right above "clone self so alternate self can fulfill alternate life role fantasies like owning a thrift store".
Let me just say that dream still remains un-crossed off.
Turns out getting IN a big blue recycling bin, especially without getting hurt, is dang hard. It's like they built that sucker knowing people would want to get in and so they made damn sure we couldn't.
Alan offered to lift it up and put it over my head but come on, how long would a recycling bin as a hat satisfy me?
3.4 minutes tops.
Who knew the turmoil these blue bins would cause.
But, emotional tug of war on my sad little recycling bin heart strings aside...there was more to come.
One fine Thursday evening we took ol' Blue, loaded down with tin cans, papers, flyers, jars and so on, down to the communal garbage area near our house. The spot where about 7 or 8 other neighbors all put their bins. What pride we took in seeing the still gleaming blue bins lined up like earth saving soldiers, waiting to do their duty.
We happily tucked Ol' Blue in amongst the neighbors and walked home, holding hands as the sun set gloriously behind us, the last dying rays glinting off the blue plastic.
The next day we went down to retrieve our empty bin...and....
I can't even begin to say it as I can barely stand to bear it....
N-n-n-n-n-no bin.
All the neighbors had already collected their bins because they don't have strange sleep cycles like us. This was nothing new...but the glaring absence of Ol' Blue, who we'd only had a week or so stuck out like a giant wrongness that produced strange keening wails from both Alan and I. (Ok just me but I didn't want to sound weird)
A ha we thought, clinging to the one sliver of desperate hope that brought light to the cloud of gloom that had enveloped us upon seeing the space devoid of our pretty new blue bin...a ha, a neighbor has probably accidentally taken our bin mistaking it for their own because they're stupid..er... I mean...they got confused, yeaah, having collected their bins in the early morning dim light...or...maybe the husband took the bins home not knowing the wife had already collected them so they ended up with double...I dunno.
Look I was desperate, trying to see the glass half full, hoping our bin would show up on it's own when some one realized their mistake.
We waited 2 whole days.....no bin.
We left kind notes that didn't sound accusatory in any way on everyone's mail boxes suggesting perhaps the possibility some one had accidentally mistaken our beautiful blue bin for their own? Perhaps?
You know how easy it is to accidentally see two giant space hogging blue bins as actually one...right?
No bin.
*sigh*
I'm not sure what's more satisfying to the mind. That a neighbor accidentally took it and can't see that they have 2, or that a recycling bin thief was on the loose. Acquiring massive piles of giant blue recycling bins for their own fun and glory. Doing strange, sick things with my recyclables and putting their dirty thief hands all over my pretty blue plastic.
For days I cast a wary eye on my neighbors as we came and went along the road here.
Harshly whispering to my husband as I slowly drove past a sweet elderly woman who actually had a sweater around her shoulders, "Psssssst see if she looks nefarious would ya hun? I can't take my eyes off the road for too long."
She didn't look nefarious. Damn it.
Genius thief or sweet old lady?
I dunno.......
We finally accepted the facts, our bin wasn't coming back. And it's not like we can just replace the sweet plastic blue box on wheels that I was beginning to think of as my trashy child...oh wait...we could!!!
Sweet.
A quick call to our disposal company and a new bin was brought to us the very next morning.
Our new bin has been just as fabulous as our old one, the one we barely got to know before it disappeared.
And dare I admit it?
This new one is even better in some ways...like the foot high house numbers we adhered over every side of it so that no one could *accidentally* mistake it for their own....that and the pretty pink note with Edwardian style font that reads "touch my blue bin, go ahead, I dare you. I might not see you but GOD is."
Nothing like hauling God out of the dusty corners of my mind where I've relegated him to put the fear of me in to would be recycling bin thieves.

******confession: I didn't really leave a note like that on our bin...but I thought about it...muahhh ahhh ahhh.