When In Rob’s Warrensburg Neighborhood Use the Garbage Can
It was an interesting weekend on my usually quiet street in Warrensburg. There was a party. It was noisy. At some point after midnight there were loud voices out my window. Soon after there were police cruisers, that were joined by an ambulance. The cops and paramedics may or may not have been related to the yelling and door slamming my wife heard throughout the night. But my real problem started several hours earlier, before the sun went down.
I went out to pick up some groceries at the Walmart. When I left, the party a couple of doors down seemed to be off to a good start. Vehicles in the driveway. Parked cars clogging up the street. Unmasked college kids playing bags between the houses. Smelled like some grilling might have been happening. I didn't think too much of it.
When I came back from the Walmart though, that's when I saw the thing that just got stuck in my craw. One of the cars parked on the street right by my driveway had left. In it's place, a three quarter drunk bottle of Corona sitting on the curb.
Obviously someone realized it probably wasn't smart to take that mostly drunk beer in their vehicle. So they left it on the curb. Literally three steps from my garbage and recycling carts. Like it would have been difficult to pour the rest of the beer in the grass and throw the bottle in my garbage or recycling cart? It was right there.
I should have taken care of the bottle right then and there. But yaknow what. It wasn't my party. It wasn't my party guest drinking the beer. It wasn't my beer. So in my irritation I left it.
Sunday morning when I took the dog for his walk I saw the bottle. Still with the back-washed beer in the bottom quarter of the bottle. But now sitting on my garbage cart.
Someone, probably a police officer during the commotion overnight, put the beer bottle on my garbage bin. Once again, really? It was too hard to pour the beer out and just put it in my garbage can? Obviously whoever put it there was standing RIGHT THERE by my garbage and recycling carts.
I get it. The police officers were here for a reason. And anything more than getting the beer bottle out of the curb and out of the way where someone may trip on it probably wasn't a priority.
But still, while my wife Kathy and I made like L.B. Jefferies, peering out the window of our darkened apartment, trying to figure out what prompted the appearance of the cops and paramedics on our street. It was clear whatever had been going on was mostly defused.
So I go back to my question. Why couldn't someone have just dumped the beer out and put it in my garbage cart? Hell, don't dump the beer out, just put the bottle in the cart. I understand I sound like the old guy yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. And I'm OK with that.
My wife and I try to be good neighbors. We tie up our garbage bags and make sure our garbage cart isn't overflowing with garbage to keep the trash pandas from getting into it. When I walk my dog I always take a poop bag and clean up after him so my neighbors don't have to deal with it. I guess I'm just baffled at why neither of the people who handled the beer couldn't exercise the minimal effort to use the garbage cart in front of them. It's a little thing, yes, that I would have greatly appreciated.