The garbage man waved at me today.
Ever since they stopped riding on the back of trucks, I stopped believing in garbage men as real people. Something about that huge claw mounted on the side of the truck that hoisted the large black bins up and emptied their plastic bags full of odds and ends and kitchen scraps into the truck's open top dehumanized the profession for me. The garbage man was now just a guy driving a truck around the block, hidden by the tint of the cab's windows, no better than a robot. He hated his job, his life - he hated everyone.
Traci asked me through my headphones, "Did we take out our garbage today?"
The urgency in her voice keyed me in to one of the sounds I had been filtering out - the whirring of the garbage truck's machinery. A clunk as it slammed down an emptied bin.
"No!" I yanked the headphones from my ears, interrupting Billy Joel in the middle of the Piano Man, and jumping up from the couch.
"It's too late," my wife was saying, "It might be just the recycling anyway. I don't know. Is our garbage can full?"
I was slipping on my flip-flops and making for the door, "yeah. We forgot to take it out last week, too." Two weeks' worth of our twins' dirty diapers were festering in there with the kitchen bags. Another week would have us overflowing and stinking up the entire complex.
Running out into the morning glare, I caught sight of the truck lifting another black bin skyward. This was the garbage truck, he had only one more to do.
I nabbed our black bin from the line-up alongside our garage door and started running for the road. The claw picked up the last garbage bin from the curb. The sidewalk hadn't been plowed so I wouldn't be able to push mine to the end of the line. I'd have to go all the way around the garbage truck to get in front.
I got to the road just as he slammed the last garbage can down. Desperate, I waved, hoping to catch his eye in the mirror. Suddenly a face appeared there - sunglasses and a ball cap. I mouthed to him - can I put my can up there? pointing towards the end of the row.
Rather than answer me - he probably hadn't even understood my flapping lips - the truck started backing up. He was going to come back to get it.
I left my garbage can right where I stood and took a step to the side. I had never been this close to the claw that leaped out from the side of the truck and grappled perfectly around my garbage can - such precision! I watched the bags of diapers fall like clumps of dirty snow into the top of the truck. The can came back down, gripped tightly by the claw. It released, pulled back into the truck.
I mouthed "thank you" to the mirror. The man there lifted his hand in a wave, and then drove away.
