Tuesdays

On Tuesdays I dutifully and somewhat loudly drag the old plastic garbage can from the back yard out to the curb. Matted thick brown leaves, until recently buried under months of heavy winter snow create the perfect slick path, and again I think how stupid it is to rake. Refusing to succumb to the luxury of a brand new sturdy modern wheeled can with a snappy environmental city logo, I energetically brave the dark early morning with its obstacles lurking who-knows-where around the muddy yard. I get the job done. "Exhilerating!" I tell myself.

Where do all of the old recycling bins go? Are the landfills full of them? The city workers will no longer have anything to do with my cracked one. They ignore the glass and plastic offerings inside and leave me notes referring to rules concerning my responsibilities and their expectations. They also refuse to take the offensive bin away. They will have nothing to do with it. Again I suspect I have missed an important memo, a bit of information that everyone in the neighborhood seems to know. I am an environmental cretin. I am unknowingly destroying the world.

On Tuesdays in the dark I pass driveways with carefully placed cans perched smartly at the end of driveways, recycling bins sitting properly to the left. Behind them, yards are green already, some miracle of fall raking I suppose.