Garbage Can Rant

Yes; you read that correctly. Garbage cans.

“Why rant about garbage cans?” You may ask.

My good friend, Joyce, once gave me a very wise and useful piece of advice: Always be good to your garbage man. It doesn’t matter how rich and powerful you are; if the garbage man doesn’t show up for work and take your garbage away, you will be unhappy.

It is an irony that Joyce never extended this metaphor to being good to wait staff at restaurants. She was notorious for badgering servers, even for whistling to get attention. As a result, I went for a period of about 8 years once, when anytime I had dinner out with her, it was a sure thing that I would end up eating the wrong dinner order. Cold. We cook at home now. It works out better for everyone..

But I’m getting off topic here.

As I have mentioned previously, I live in the far outskirts of North Coast Metroland. We have no sidewalks, no streetlights. We have a septic tank, which is the subject of mild and intermittent floating anxiety for me, I will admit.

We also have a private company haul away trash. There is one. It’s Allied Waste Management. They are a ginormous company with landfills scattered hither and yon across the country. If you want your trash gone, you have to contract with these guys. They own the landfill, so you can’t show up with your own garbage. There is no alternative. They are a monopoly. Got the picture? They have the entire county by a sizeable handful of short hairs.

Earlier this week, a large blue trash receptacle on wheels arrived in my driveway. By “Large” I mean it’s about half-again as big as each of the two wheelie garbage cans we’ve been allowed to have until now. It’s also about twice as heavy as a standard garbage can, and it’s nearly 4 ft tall. So it’s big, but not big enough to give us as much volume as the two cans we’ve used to date at Camp Beanie

It and its compatriots were all just there, lined up at the end of every driveway in the neighborhood, when I got home from work. No accompanying documentation. They were just there, like silent sentinels, tall and heavy and shiny and blue.

I asked Mr. Bean: “When did it get here?”

He briefly looked up from his computer screen. “What?”

“The big honking garbage can? In the driveway?”

He looked down again. “I refuse to see the garbage can. There is nothing there.”

“Um…OK.“

I called Allied Waste to inquired about the potentially imaginary garbage can.

“Yes; we are now requiring that all of your refuse be placed in the provided cans.”

“Ask?” I inquired. “I see no ask. There was no accompanying letter or even a sticker on the cans. And I don’t see anyone asking me anything. The blessed things just arrived, like locusts.”

“Ah, yes; well, we’re a little bit behind on getting the flyers out.”

“I see. So how did you determine that we were in need of these cans?”

“We have made a modification to our collection process, to better serve our customers and protect our employees from injury. The new cans can be lifted and dumped by our automated trucks now”

“Oh? You are protecting your employees from injury? Have paychecks become a source of injury now? “ I was, perhaps, allowing my sarcasm to bleed through a bit.

“Um….”

“You’re sure it wasn’t so you can decrease your workforce?”

Silence.

“OK, how about my next question. How is my 85-year-old neighbor lady going to haul this behemoth of a can out to the street? Because it’s pretty heavy. Have you tried to wheel one of these around?”

“We have alternative solutions for those customers who need them.”

“Oh? Is that information in the flyer that is not accompanying the new cans? What alternative solution should I share with the neighbor lady? Better yet, what should I tell the next-door neighbor who has five kids and probably won’t be able to put all their garbage in this wonderful can?”

“Um…well, I’m not sure. They haven’t told us. Your refuse has to fit in the can.”

“So you don’t have an alternative solution?”

“Oh yes. We do.”

“But you can’t tell anyone.”

“Um…I’ll have to talk with my supervisor. Thank you for you comments ma’am.”


I called the county commissioner.

"Oh, I got one today too! I'm so screwed! I have a small business, and they won't give me a second can..."

uh-huh

Thursday morning, the garbage trucks showed up. All the new blue behemoths were lined up compliantly on the street – the next door neighbors had rigged it to contain an overflow. Apparently, in addition to not getting the flyers out on time, they didn’t get the new trucks out on time. The new cans were too big and heavy for the garbage crew guys to lift, so they had this one guy, with REALLY long arms, reaching into the cans, one at a time, and pulling the bags and associated jetsam out of the cans and putting it all in the truck. He fell into the can across the street.

I pointed this out to Mr. Bean.

“He has not yet learned to deny the can. When he denies the can, he will be able to lift it. I suggest that next week, we make a pot of coffee and bring out the lawn chairs."

I don’t know whether to write to the better business bureau or go watch The Matrix again.

T-O-R-T-U-R-E

This is a shameful day, indeed, in American history.

Our government has failed to uphold our moral and ethical will by refusing to override President Bush's veto of the intelligence bill. A bill that was intended, in part, to extend to the CIA and other intelligence agencies the same rules we have placed on our military interrogators regarding the use of torture as an intelligence-gathering "tool". To be clear, there are only eight things these military interrogators are not allowed to do. Eight. It's like saying we can't form complete sentences without using George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words." These eight illegal interrogation techniques are, I understand, also slightly less effective than using Mr. Carlin's seven dirty words, when it comes to gathering good intelligence.

Please, sir, if you will allow me to retain my genitals, I would be happy to give you the names of several Al Qaeda operatives posing as shepherds outside of Baghdad.

I'm not even going to bother feeling outraged that Bush vetoed the bill to being with. I've given up on expecting anything morally right out of the man. He's clearly a megalomaniac who thinks that whatever he conceives is correct by definition.

I love this quote from the flavor-of-the-month White House Assistant Press Secretary:

"The bill would have eliminated the legal alternative procedures in place in the CIA program to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists."

Really. Waterboarding is legal? Who knew?

Well, hell -- how about breaking people's thumbs?

"Hey, pal, if you can't pay back the money you owe to Big Vinny, my friend Guido, here, might have to employ some legal alternative procedures to help you remember to do that later."

This was a strict party-line vote. The Republicans were so busy trying to punish the Democrats over the illegal (oops - legal alternative) wiretap legislation that they abandoned basic human rights and upheld the opinion of Herr Dunderhead.

So if I understand this correctly, waterboarding and other forms of torture are illegal if carried out by someone who may: a) Get caught on camera; b) Be stupid enough to develop a moral conscience and talk about it later; or c) Be on the social security roles at some point.

Buy hey! If you like to work in dark alleys and agree not to exist, officially, you can do whatever you want, with the full legal blessing of the US government. Yay for you!

I am sickened.

Rant Alert

Well, this is another of those blog entries written when I was hurt that gave me my outlet. It served its purpose, but it's time for it to come down now, lest it cause unintended and unnecessary hurt.

Those little voices in your head

Inigo: Are you the Miracle Max who worked for the king all those years?
Miracle Max: The king's stinking son fired me. And thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? We're closed.
[knocking] Beat it, or I'll call the brute squad!
Fezzik: I'm on the brute squad.
Miracle Max: You are the brute squad.
Inigo: We need a miracle. It's very important.
Miracle Max:Look, I'm retired. And besides, why would you want someone the king's stinking son fired? I might kill whoever you wanted me to miracle.
From: The Princess Bride, (1987) 20th Century Fox. Screenplay by William Goldman

You know those little voices in your head?

No; not the ones that tell you to eat the last of the Cheetos, or the ones that suggest, ever so softly, that your sister-in-law's prune danish is in fact the devil's handiwork and should be dealt with by pounding it to death with the meat tenderizer that you keep with you for just such a crisis.

No; not those voices.

I'm talking about the ones that tell you that you're a fraud and that you have no business holding the positions of authority you hold and suggest that really, if anyone finds out how bleeding incompetent you are, they're going to drag you out into the town square and stone you to death.

Those voices.

Most days, I can keep them at bay. And some days, I can kick them in the shins and tell them to get back in their hole.

And then, there are days like today. Days when I can have a 15 minute meeting with someone who seemingly looks into my soul, plucks out the source of those voices, and brings them out into the open, screaming their foul message for me and everyone to hear.

The voices do not energize me. They do not challenge me to rise above. I do not feel compelled to beat them down.

I just want, instead, to crawl into a hole and hide myself away from the world.

I wish I felt differently.

I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.

Is it my breath?

So what happened to this post?

For those of you who were here earlier, I wrote this in a time of anger and hurt. Sometimes those we love can damage us far more than those who are our real enemies. I expressed that pain here and in doing so, I was able to release it.

It's time is over now, however, so it's time to retire this post, so it doesn't cause hurt of its own in ways I don't intend. Thanks for reading.

Stuff that just p*sses me off!

So I don't talk about this a lot here, but my dear hubby and I both are involved in a lot of volunteer child advocacy activities here in town. I work primarily on the education side; he works primarily on the support services side. So we both get a lot of satisfaction out of helping kids get off to a better start in the world, but we also both see a lot of stuff we wish we didn't know existed.

So I guess we're both a teensy bit smarter than the average bear when it comes to dealing with issues of family relations, custody, etc. I guess it's for this reason that "Julie" turned to us for help.

Julie is the mother of one of my daughter's little friends from school. Little friend (I'll call her Audrey) is a delight: clever, compassionate...perhaps a bit rough around the edges, but she comes by that honestly. Julie, you see, is a recovering addict with a felony record. Or at least I thought so until last night. Recovering, that is.

Julie and the kids were living with Julie's mom until Julie decided to get an apartment a few months back. Apparently Julie's mom didn't like this turn of events, (it seems Gramma is a control freak) and decided to sue Julie through local social services for custody of the kids. She claimed Julie was using again and neglecting the kids. Julie has sworn that she was clean and just trying hard to take good care of her babies. And she appeared to be sincere -- the kids were relatively clean and well-fed and she seemed to be giving them ample time. I've had a few suspicions -- addicts are notorious liars. But she spent a lot of time with me on the back porch while the kids played, and shared a lot that she didn't have to share. I really felt for her and sort of took her under wing. I really believe that every family should be given every opportunity to stay together if they can. Besides, I'm not convinced Gramma isn't a bit psycho.

Anyway, Julie has turned to S and me for some support through all this -- asking for advice about how to deal with the county people and whatnot. Our advice has been consistent: do what they ask you to do. Take your drug tests. Accept any and all assistance. Tell the truth. We even offered to have the kids live with us temporarily (we're state screened foster parents) so everyone involved can catch their breath and get their acts together. Julie was terrified about it all -- she's not used to any happy endings with local authorities, from the sounds of things, and trying to convince her to trust in these people was a struggle. I was really afraid she'd do something stupid, like bolt.

About three weeks ago, we found out from Audrey (through my daughter as part of a recess discussion) that she and Julie and little brother were reuniting with "Jim", the kids' dad...out of state. I was optimistic about the reunion; not so much about part 2. The county people are not too understanding about the whole "flee across state lines" thing. Still, two parents are better than one and so long as they're not both completely dysfunctional (and I know Dad is a citizen, of sorts) I was cautiously hopeful that this might have a happy ending. Julie, of course, was immediately impossible to contact, so I didn't have a good way of knowing if they did any of this "by the book" or not.

I've frankly been worried sick about these kids for the last three weeks. I would take Audrey as my own in a minute and I ache to see her in a bad situation.

Fast forward to last night, when I get a collect call from a county jail in another state.

Apparently, there was some domestic dispute that took place and Julie was in jail. She'd been in the pokey for some time, evidently. She wanted me to try to reach Jim with information about how to get her released, as the custody hearing with Gramma is soon. It was complicated and the story full of holes. Still, I promised to talk with Jim. I welcomed an opportunity to get more of this story and like I said, I've been worried sick about these kids.

Hubby (God I love that man!) made the phone call, and talked with Jim for some time. Long story short: Julie had been using the whole time she was up here. Jim made her clean up as a condition of them all getting together, and after a week she went into some DT-induced freak-out and tried to kill him. Literally. But the kids are fine; they haven't so much as inquired about Julie's whereabouts. They're in school and he's getting them counseling. Jim's parents are nearby and helping out with support and stability. It's not exactly Leave It To Beaver 2007, but they sound OK.

But he's leaving Julie in jail and I'm supportive of that. She'll get treatment there and hopefully they can get her sufficiently cleaned up that the family has fighting chance. It's tough love, but it's what she needs. I just hope and pray that those kids get to stay with Dad. He seems the only sane one of the bunch. If I get called to testify (and it seems I might...how do I get myself into these situations???), I will tell the authorities as much.

But I'm pissed. Julie lied to me and she put those kids in jeopardy. And I was prepared to help her battle for custody of them. I feel betrayed and angry with her -- and with myself too, for believing her.

Chalk it up to another learning experience. Maybe the bear is smarter than me after all.

I Hate Insurance Companies

You know, it seems such a fair and equitable deal at first: You (0r preferably, your employer) pay something like $4000 a year into a pot of money, with the knowledge that at some point you're going to get sick and use that money to pay for your medical expenses. Most years, you only use a teensy bit of that to get some Keflex for that nasty sinus infection you insist on catching from your wheezing co-worker each November. One of these days, he'll learn to cover his mouth when he coughs.

Some years, the Wheel of Fortune is not so kind and you get really sick, or you fall off the ladder while trying to retrieve your daughter's screaming rocket balloon that got lodged in the maple tree out front, or you get knocked up and have a baby. So those years, maybe you take a bit more than you put in. I think it cost me about $12,000 to produce my current offspring, including all the pre-natal, the c-section, and the realization that I'd totally effed up my life and the resulting trip to the funny farm.

So that's what? Three years' worth? And it was seven years ago?

My point is that when you are young, you pour a ton of money into this system, and I'll venture to guess that most of us are polite enough to kick the can or go on Medicare before we use it all up. I'd say the insurance companies, between what we don't withdraw from the kitty and the investments they make with our money while they're holding it, make a pretty penny on the vast majority of us.

So why the hell do they insist on this nickel and dime, we-ain't-gonna-pay-last-year's-rent attitude toward paying out what we pay in???

First, you can't stay in a hospital to recuperate from major surgery anymore. Nope. You say your children are not trained Physical Therapists with stay-at-home lifestyles? Oh, too bad. You have to go to a skilled care facility (a/k/a a nursing home) to actualy heal. Strike one.

Then, they restrict the places you can go for said nursing care. Is there a skilled care facility adjacent to your hospital? Sorry; they're not on the list. but there's a great place in this shack 15 miles away. Don't mind the roaches. They don't eat much. Strike two.

So your child, as a responsible family member, visits several of the places on the approved list, and deems one of them to be populated by caring humans and not too ill-equipped for your needs. You think you're out of the woods? Guess again. Now you have to convince the insurance company that you actually NEED this care and that your well-meaning children really AREN'T PT specialists. You say it's just a broken leg? Why can't you go home with a broken leg? What are you, some kinda WIMP?

Strike three.

After 12 hours of fights with the insurance company and extensive tours of 4 skilled care facilities (don't use the "N-H" word, please), Mom is finally installed in the least objectionable of them for the next week or so until she's strong enough to go to the bathroom and make a sandwich unassisted.

I'm exhausted, I'm frustrated, and I'm on the guilt trip of the century that she's not here already.