10:25 p.m. - 2007-03-25
Recycleathon

The Junk Parade

Today was the beginning of a phenomenon that happens once a year in Elgin, Illinois. Spring clean up week. Once a year, beginning with the first Monday in Spring, Elgin residents are allowed to put out anything and everything they want for garbage pick up without putting the customary $2.00 sticker on each item.

During that week, the night before your neighborhood garbage day, you can put out your items for pickup on garbage day, which in our case was Sunday for Monday pick up.

We had a beautiful, sunny, 80 degree day today. My nephew Sam and his buddy Bobby came to help us move a mattress and box spring and bed frame out to the curb, and move the much nicer mattress in the downstairs family room up to the bedroom. My Mother in Law occupied that room, then my husband during his knee/heart recovery. MIL is in the nursing home and Mike is now able to climb the stairs so it's time for Paula to get the back room returned to her for the purposes of making a library.

The boys helped us move things here and there. Some things came up from the basement, other things went down. Some things came down from the upstairs, somethings went up. Lots of things went to the curb....lots of junk, including that bad mattress and box spring that although, clean and not particularly old, were cheap and broken down.

Bobby and Sam carried out the old mattress set and barely had time to put it down when a pick up truck came and literally took it out of their hands. They ran back up and got the frame so the person taking the set would have a whole bed. Next we put out plastic bins with little drawers my MIL had old bandages and crap in...they had a distinct "old lady" smell and I didn't want them. We set them out and walked to the front door, turned around and they were gone. Mike then found an old stereo and speakers in a box that no longer worked. 2 minutes at the curb....GONE!!!!!

There was a little piece of chippy white rotting picket fence left in the back yard by the former owners of our home. I tried working it into the decor in the garden some how and never did manage to achieve that chippy white Martha Stewarty or Home and Garden channel look with it, so I schlepped it to the curb. Mike asked why I was throwing it away and I said "it's a piece of rotting junk...no one will want it." 3 minutes at the curb, and the rotting piece of chippy white picket fence was GONE!!!!!!

We tried to load our curb up all day long with trash and believe me....Mike and I are packrats..when we put out trash....trust me...it's trash. As I look out my window now at 10:38PM, all of our "trash" is gone except for our garbage can and recycling bin.

It's a frenzy I tell you...mass hysteria.

Other neighbors have loaded their curbs up too. There has been a constant parade all day that continues into the night. Cars pulling up to piles of trash, a door opening, a person getting out, a trunk opening, a treasure grabbed and the car speeds off like a thief in the night. A neighbor put out a chipped and cracked concrete garden chachki out and a broken birdbath....GONE like lightning.

I joked about putting out a bag of shit to see if someone would take it....I truly believe some gardener would have said "Wow, fertilizer" and thought he had found the holy grail.

There were pick up trucks and vans with scows and wagons attached, filled to the brim with discarded treasures. I don't think the garbage men will have much to cart away tomorrow.

Our Mexican neighbors across the street, usually take our household discards, but they have a pile of crap out there themselves. I figured since they were such recyclers, anything they put out would naturally have been at the farthest extent of its usuable life....but no....cars came by and took their stuff too.

Now, I do understand that some people throw away perfectly good things but I swear...there is no garbage left on the block...someone who probably put their own garbage out...came by and took other peoples garbage. I draw the line at taking an old mattress from people you don't know....a mattress that has most likely been farted on, dead skin cells shed...I mean...come one...what if we had bed bugs for cryin out loud. What if an incontinent old lady used that mattress...what if someone died on it for pete's sake....tell me buddies...would any of you take a mattress from people you don't know?

Now, I know for sure that this mattress was never peed on but it was heavily used and even the cleanest people shed skin cells and fart.

This is a cultural phenomenon I have never experienced before. It was fun to watch. As the parade went on, my packrat of a husband thought he was missing something and tried to prod me into walking down a couple of houses to see what the neighbors had. I am so glad I persuaded him to stay put. We have enough stuff in this house and don't need the neighbors cracked bathroom shelving.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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