I have always thought that you can figure out a lot about people by their garbage. This is not to say that I dig through other peoples garbage just to find out things about them. Why dig through garbage when you can tap phone calls, look in windows, and follow people to work? Well, so I have heard and read. This week has the exciting distinction of containing “Big garbage day” in Coquitlam, which, loosely translated, means you can haul whatever junk you want to get rid of to the curb and let the neighbors and salvage artists pick through it for a whole week before the garbage people come by to pick it up. Now I know why there were so many yard sales on the weekend (more on that particular brand of human travesty later). So if you need new furniture, say a new couch, you know where you can get a nice, used, slightly stained one. I saw a number of these today. One of them, on the side of the road, had this dog sitting on it. I presume it was his couch before it was carted to the curb, and damn if he wasn’t going to get as much use out of it before it was gone forever. I also saw a horribly stained mattress. I don’t want to know the story there. However, I did see a fantastically disfigured barbecue. The whole lid of it had melted away, and half of the wood portion of the side counter part had been burned. I DO want to know the story there. Suffice to say, it probably gave the neighbors something to talk about – and then again when the steaks finally fell from their blast induced low orbit to eventually come down into their pool, strangely enough, on the pool party day. Nothing spoils a pool party like a steak in the water.
As I mentioned, I noticed many “garage/yard/buy my junk and add it to yours” sales this weekend. The people upstairs had one, and so did many people on the road up the hill. The strange thing was, I noticed five yard sales, but the only signs for them were the ones directly in front of their houses. Why? Later on I saw this guy walking up the hill, with everyone’s yard sale signs in under one arm, and his colorful/neon signs under the other. The bastard was taking down everyone else’s signs and putting up his instead! I should have grabbed his stapler and ….. I should have run over him right then and there, so that he wouldn’t spread his genetic disposition onto progeny that would follow his lead. This kind of thing is genetic, as is the “yard sale” gene (ysg-10), and I should know, I am *this* close to a biology degree. I think this would have been virtually justifiable homicide, but I doubt the courts would agree. Perhaps I will raise this in my “Law and Psychology” class this semester.