Trash can tragedy...
By TheRealDawn
@dawnald (85146)
Shingle Springs, California
March 24, 2010 2:40pm CST
Was reading my cousin's wall over on Facebook. She lives in Rancho Cucamonga (I like to call it Rancho Cucaracha lol), California, and it gets pretty windy there. It's pretty windy where I live also. Anyway, she was watching some guy on trash day who was chasing his garbage cans down the street because it was so windy.
This reminds me of a very windy day not too long ago. I was home, working from home, that day. I guess one of the children was sick. And it was really, really windy. I went downstairs at lunch and all the patio furniture had walked all the way across the lawn, including the pool box, which was full. So I went outside and wrestled it all back onto the porch.
Then I went out front and saw that one of the trash cans had been knocked over. So I went down our long, steep driveway and stood it up again. By the time R got home from work, after the trash trucks had been by, one of the cans was missing. Now he had made a point to drill holes in the bottom of all three of our cans so that they wouldn't fill up if they were out in the rain with the lid blown over. So when he went down the street and saw one can that was the right color (we have one for trash, one for green waste and one for recycling), he knew it wasn't ours. Problem is, ours wasn't there. Somebody else had taken it. So, thinking it better to have a trash can than not, he brought it home.
So now, we no longer have three holey trash cans, only two. Somebody else's recycling can is holier than ours. Imagine that!
Do any of you have any interesting things that happened on a windy day?
3 people like this
9 responses
@MagicalBubbles (5103)
• Canada
24 Mar 10
Oh, the fun of running after your trash cans. Been there, done that and I dont anymore. We have a huge box thats drilled to the pavement and we put our trash cans in there.
I once nearly flew out in the wind. Was coming out of the mall with hubby, opened the SUV door to get in and Whooosh this gust of wind nearly sent me flying. Hubby thought it was very funny. Now everytime its windy, he hangs on to me so I dont fly away. Men can be so funny at times.
Of course, theres the proverbial skirt flying up.......yup, happened to me as I was getting out of my car once. It was very hot so it felt refreshing LOL
3 people like this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
24 Mar 10
I wish we could do that, but we have to put them on the street and then the trucks have mechanical arms that pick them up. Guess that saves on labor or something...
I almost got whapped by a car door in the wind myself. Not fun...
1 person likes this
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
24 Mar 10
hi dawnald in our post eviction days I was sitting in front of Vons
grocery store waiting for the access bus to pick me up. a lot of people were careless and had just left grocery carts all over instead of
putting them in the designated spots. well the wind was really blowing hard. so as I watched three then four grocery carts went sailing down one of the roadways in the mall. here comes cars swerving to advoid hitting the cans. okay finally someone came along from a different path way and swerved to avoid a sailing cart, and bam. She crashed into the other driver who had just swerved right in front of her. so now we had two irate drivers, a large macho type guy and an elderly woman, both mad as could be, one with a crumpled side door, the other with a broken bumper, and they were really going at it. so someone called the police, and darn would you not know, my bus showed up just then, so shucks i never did get to see how this little crash drama played out.So did the elderly woman have to pay for smashing the macho guy's door or did he have to pay for breaking her bumper or did the police officer write it off as a stupid accident because of loose grocery carts? I will never know.boo hoo.
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
25 Mar 10
I'll just ban myself from all trash bins in advance!
@scarlet_woman (23463)
• United States
27 Mar 10
yup-that's exactly why i put our house number on ours with big white numbers.
we have a neighbor that "collects" them from everybody.
i hope he enjoys that residual whiff of all week cat tuna it comes with LOL
interesting..well,the last storm another tree up the street snapped.30 yr old pine.
took out the power for about 15 hours (of course it was a sunday).it was the owner's own fault it snapped tho..he overcut the bottom,so it was off balance.
shame,it was a beautiful tree before he butchered it.
i hope he enjoys that residual whiff of all week cat tuna it comes with LOL
interesting..well,the last storm another tree up the street snapped.30 yr old pine.
took out the power for about 15 hours (of course it was a sunday).it was the owner's own fault it snapped tho..he overcut the bottom,so it was off balance.
shame,it was a beautiful tree before he butchered it.1 person likes this
@savypat (20216)
• United States
24 Mar 10
I lived with the desert wind for over 50 years and have many stories. In fact I kind of miss it. At one time we lived in a shack and the sand use to pile up in the house over night. One morning we couldn't get out of the house and the windows were all covered with tumble weeds, if you have never met a tumble weed, it's full of stickers and there is only one way to handle it, by the stem. It's a good thing we still had phone service, we had to wait for someone to come and let us out. I went back several years later, about 10 to look where we had come from and there were nothing but sand dunes there.
2 people like this
@jesssp (2712)
• Canada
24 Mar 10
At our old house the garbage truck didn't come until close to 12pm so the cans would have to sit out all morning. It's quite windy here too and we lived right across the street from a park. It was not uncommon to come home at lunch or after work and have to chase garbage cans through the park - I would also have to dodge other peoples' runaway trash cans so I wouldn't run them over. Our poor cans were pretty beat up by the time we moved, a few of the lids even have tire marks on them from being run over. We always joke about going 'garbage can shopping' on really windy days because they're always all over the place.
2 people like this
@rosegardens (3032)
• United States
25 Mar 10
I don't have a windy day story, but I do have a garbage day story. My neighbor had given me a garbage can, it was pretty messed up and had a ton of holes in it, but it worked. I always put stuff in bags anyway, so it was still functional. One day I stuffed some branches in it along with the garbage. My housemate usually takes the can in so I never noticed anything weird for a few days. Then I began to look, because I could not find my trash can! I guess the garbage men thought it was garbage too. lol. I did think about getting a new one because that one was trashed (pun intended) but why spend the money if you don't have to. My neighbor did find me another trash can that isn't as holey. Still have it, the trash men have not yet thrown it in the back of the truck. lol
1 person likes this
@recycledgoth (9894)
•
25 Mar 10
We've had to chase the recycling boxes down the road before now LOL. I live on a hill so the wind tends to howl down the slope, Last year we had some very high winds which brought down tree branches, etc., but the funniest was watching a large tarpaulin flying down the road looking like a ship under full sail. It went higher and higher into the sky before disappearing over the trees.
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
25 Mar 10
On a dark and spooky night it probably would have looked like it was ghost powered or something!
@BarBaraPrz (48012)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
25 Mar 10
And I bet whoever's can you have is wondering how the holes got in theirs...
Around here, people put their house numbers & street names on their cans.
(Me, I just put out a grocery bag of trash every now and then.)
1 person likes this
@neildc (17239)
• Lapu-Lapu City, Philippines
25 Mar 10
i remember being caught in the strong wind with my wife at the top of the bridge with our motorcycle. it was an exciting experience. and it was too scary. i remember i had posted about it that time. wait, i will try to dig it up from the mylot archives...
after ten minutes, here is the link to that nightmare we had about two years ago, http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1574810.aspx
about the trash problem. there is something that i can not understand with the local government here. sometimes they collect, sometimes do not. most of the times, they just passed our place. you will know they are the garbage collectors by the sound of the bell hanged at the side of the truck bin.
garbage law suggests us to segregate recycleable and garbage that could be burnt at the yard or those of fruits, veggies that can be buried in the lawn, backyard. they will only collect recycleable materials like plastics bags, plastic bottles, glass bottles, etc.
what i cannot understand, they do not provide the community with trash bins, barrels, drums, where we can put our trashes with our selves.
http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1514079.aspx
1 person likes this
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
25 Mar 10
They do provide them here, but there's a fee.
Sorry you were on the bridge, sounds pretty scary!
