A Letter to the man/woman/aliens that pick through my garbage at 3 a.m.

Dear Early Morning Garbage Picker(s),

I understand that you are hungry/broke/bored… I respect the traumas that have led you to this part-time profession… and I hope that these early morning mining sessions of yours reveal the fruit you so desire: glass bottles with a swig left of scotch, half-nibbled pizza pies still in their box, or recyclables ripe for recyclin’.  But I beg of you, for just 21 more days, can you pick through my trash with less clamour, less bang, less NOISE?

You see, I don’t know how you came to find that us Almayo-ens produce so much of whatever it is you’re looking for, but it’s nigh on 4 nights now that you’ve been pillaging our plunder, and that plunder lay directly outside and beneath my bedroom window… a single-paned wonder that allows every damn crinkle of your crashing about to interrupt my REM cycle.

It’s stressing me out.

Last night, er, this morning, your noisy pilfering infiltrated my dreams and had me looking for the source of the disruption amongst wood beams and chocolate cupcakes standing stories high!  When I finally bubbled up to the surface of that confusion, there you were, the sleep-thief, thieving your way through our collective waste.  I wanted to open my window and rain down obscenities upon your brow.

But I didn’t.

Because I feel bad that you are down there in the first place, while I am cosily tucked into bed.

So I’m writing this plea to you instead… a plea to work quietly, to sift silently, to come and go like an elf.  Ask yourself, what would a garden gnome do?  How does Santa do it?  (or possibly)  Isn’t there somewhere better you could go?   And then, if stay you must, then let none know you were here, especially me, the sleeping monster just feet from the fray.  Because one of these morns, if the cycle isn’t broken, the monster will bellow.  She will bellow long and loud… She will blister your ears with her sleepless rage and the buildings around us will rattle… And then, once riled, she will have an even harder time getting back to sleep.

So please, please, just… Shhhhhhh.

Sincerely,

ME

Trash Riot

Dear Garbage Picker,

 

I know you have to do your dirty work in the wee hours of the morning- the seedy underworld of Recycling Hunters is choc full of competition; City Recycling trucks, other bottle hunters in dirty vans, the homeless – But I write to you today in the hopes that you can learn to SHUT THE HELL UP!

Oops.  I lost my temper there for a moment.

You see, it’s just that my bedroom sits right atop your pillaging grounds, and while it ain’t no penthouse view, that little alley you’re rustling around is right outside my window.  SO, when you roll up at 5 a.m. with your chatter (you’ve got partners and that’s clever business), your “Ding…Ding…Ding” keys-in-the-ignition-and-the-door-open-because-you-might-need-to-make-a-fast-get-away (natives can get restless!  Why I heard day-old garbage has been known to grow feet and claws in some states), and your GODDAMN CLUNKING AND BANGING (whoops, there goes that temper again!), well I get a little upset.

Because, although I myself am bordering on bankruptcy, I do NOT have to be up at 5 a.m.

So, when you come pulling up with your (sometimes you have music?!  WTF?!) LOUDNESS that early, well it makes me think that you don’t care.  You don’t care that you are mucking about in alley-views that inevitably harbor (normally-peaceful) sleeping inhabitants.  It makes me think that you have become a little too focused on that all-glowing recycling prize.

So tomorrow morning when I yell out the window at you to SHUT THE HELL UP AND TAKE THE GD KEYS OUT OF THE IGNITION, YOU DAMN IDIOT  you’ll at least understand why I am so upset.  Because, I’m not a sweet person at 5 a.m.  No matter how empathetic I may be to your financial distress.  And you have lost perspective.  You need reminding that while the world may be your aluminum oyster, that’s my garbage your raiding and I’m not feeling very appreciated.  And if I had something heavy (a choice glass bottle perhaps) to fling from my window at your intrusive self, I would, because you have lost your bottle-picking-ways.

Stealth.  Honor.  Silence.  These are your origins.

Get back on track, grasshopper, and ye shall be fruitful.  Stray farther and ye shall be… full of fruit.

The rotten kind.

Raining down on you from Almayo Alley.

Sincerely,

Me