On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 15:08:36 -0700, "Steve B"
wrote:

Be nice to your trash truck drivers. I believe I could get mine to
knowingly take a corpse. I'm not kidding. They have taken cabinets, big
pieces of sheetrock, two water heaters, big stuff.

How am I nice to them? I take them cold bottled water or a Coke on a hot
day. My daughter's a PO,

You're daughter's a post office, and you offerred your daughter to the
trash men!! That might be going too far, but if not, I don't have a
daughter to offer anyhow.

and she gets tablets of free BIG GULP coupons. I
give them a couple of them. I go out there when they come and help them
when there's a big load of stuff I want NOT to make a trip to the dump with.
Last Christmas, the driver was one of the regular guys, and I gave him a
twenty. The helper was new, and I figured fair was fair. Many times
through the year, they took stuff I thought I'd have to drive to the
transfer station.

I'll keep all this in mind. They took a 4 drawer file cabinet this
past year. I don't know if that was beyond the rules or not. I took
the drawers out to make it lighter.

I am slightly nice to them, in that I smile and say hello when I see
them, although I don't usually know when they are coming. If I am
bringing something late, I carry it right up to one of them, so he can
throw it in, instead of putting it on the curb. I don't feel close
enough to them yet to throw it in myself.

I started putting the trash cans not on the sidewalk behind the parked
cars, but on the cement section of the corner island, which is as
close to them as you can get without putting the stuff in the street,
and now everyone near me puts it there. And the driver doesn't have
to back up to get close to the trash. That's why I put it there.

None of this is much, but it's all I can do except Christmas gifts.

And a couple months ago I started thinking about giving them Christmas
gifts. This is the first year I managed to give the mailman his
Christmas gift when it was still Christmas season, 3 or 4 days in
advance even. Up until now I had been running two to eight months
late. Although sometimes I don't think he earns it, since in the
years he has had this route, whenever I get a certified letter, he
never has it with him. I guess he expects me to be at work when he
comes, and even if I'm working at home that day, he hasn't brought the
letter. Strangely enough 2 weeks ago was the first time I got one,
adn that was after a fiasco a month or so before then when I went to
the post office, couldn't find the slip, because it was in the console
of my car and I didn't look there, and never got the letter. Even
after I talked to him about it, all he brought was another slip.

But none of this is the trashmen's fault, and I should start tipping
them on general principles, and not because I need them to do
something special.

After a post earlier today, I suddenly remembered that I have a tiny
trailer in Dallas, that I am supposed to assemble and bring back to
Baltimore with some of my childhood furniture on it. Was supposed to
leave this Thursday, but will be a couple weeks late. When I get back
I'll have the trailer with me.

I still may cut the WH into pieces to get it upstairs, but just this
evening, I bumped into a friend of mine who reminded me that I had
taken his water heater out of his basement! I barely remember this.
He said it wasn't heavy, but he's still ready to help me. I might
well have asked him even if I hadn't done the same thing for him.
We're friends. It doesn't have to be tit for tat.

So if I get it out, I can use my tiny trailer to take it somewhere.

He also has a stove he wants out of his basement, which he says is
heavy, but that I'm 99% sure we can disassemble.


Steve