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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Trash And The City

Multitasking. Apparently that's a new word for the New York Sanitation Department folks and they haven't figured out what it means yet. Oh no, wait - I'm sorry, that word doesn't even exist in their dictionary.

The Sanitation Department, yes the same one that employs people who can look through a recycle bag to spot a plastic Iron Man doll to issue me ticket for improper disposal, obviously doesn't have skill enough to plow the streets and pick up the garbage. Our garbage on 40th Street hasn't been picked up since December 22...of 2010.

That's nearly two weeks.

Okay, so that Saturday was a holiday...refresh my memory here - Christmas, was it? Then the blizzard hit on Sunday. And how could these guys have been expected to pick up the garbage on Wednesday because they only started plowing Queens on Wednesday - so that's a no-brainer.

But now, the streets are plowed. Have been plowed - if you call having to climb a wall of snow before reaching the sidewalk  "plowed" but what-everrr. So my question is...what is the Sanitation Department doing NOW?

Occasionally I see them driving down the streets with a giant snowplow dangling from the front of their truck and the driver looks bored. You know why? CUZ THERE AIN'T NO MORE SNOW TO PLOW.

Hey, you want something to do...how 'bout pickin' up the garbage? I'm going to have a nervous breakdown if I have to go another day pussyfooting between the dog shit and the trash on the streets! I imagine that I look like I'm doing the same jig a kid in Afghanistan would do across a mine field.

On the bright side - the trash did save someone's life. Suicidal loser notwithstanding. My husband told me a funny story he heard at work about a suicide that was foiled by the piling trash. This guy jumped out of a nine story building with the intention to kill himself and landed on a heap of garbage. He survived, yes - but do we need fools like this?

I wonder if the Sanitation Department handed him a ticket for "improper disposal"? Anyway, I'll bet this time next year we'll be hearing from this guy again. With lawyers.

You know, I wrote this...but deep down, I know our garbage men work hard. Hauling trash, working for the Mob...it can't be easy. Just imagine what their laundry smells like. And the department is just like any other government bureaucracy(gee, I spelled it correctly in two tries) - it's always someone else's fault. The Mayor, the budget cuts, the lay offs - yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. Okay, we get it but underneath all this snow and trash...we're still here. Helloooww?

New York City's trash troubles will never change. In elementary school they taught us that the word Litter and New York City were synonymous. But the best was what my mom used to tell tourists when she was a tour guide. She'd say that New York City is like a movie star - from far away the view is breath taking but up close...oi, vey!

2 comments:

  1. Okay... you got a ticket for improperly disposing of an Iron Man doll? That is too much.

    And you changed something here... is that a new header pic? Love those little drawings they do!

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  2. Yes, that's my four-year-old's depiction of me when my dog died eons ago. I love it, too.

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