I've had garbage on my mind, and my floor, lately.
Yesterday, I came home from the gymnasty to discover that the rat, disguised as a pug, Sophie, had upended the garbage pail and there was smelly crap everywhere. I held my nose, imagined myself on a beach someplace and cleaned up the festering slimy mess, then went out again. When I came back, she'd upended the garbage again and spilled what I had cleaned up.
Clearly, she has a taste for it, as I've found little bits of meat packaging in my chair, my bed and under my feet.
My mood wasn't helped by Gordie, the Jurassic Pug, who became agitated over all the yelling and pooped himself on the carpet in front of Scott's Lazy Boy.
So let's just say, yesterday, I was knee deep in shite.
But there was good news. The good news is it could have been worse.
Worse, I say, because we do use the City of Ottawa Green Bin faithfully, trotting out all our organic material, and we have a lot of it.
Some people say they don't have enough stuff to put in a recycle container, and I say, they'd better check in with their cardiologists, cancer specialists and colorectal fellas because if you don't have enough organic recycling, chances are you're a carcinoma, bowel blockage or failed ticker waiting to happen.
Without having enough to recycle, you may find yourself emptying another bag, an ostomy bag. So get with the program.
In the middle of the crap storm that was my life yesterday, I realized I'd been doing all my recycling wrong. I looked up the helpful hints from the Green Bin people yesterday, and they said if my garbage was smelly, in any way, I was doing my recycling all wrong.
It is true, some cheating was done on the part of my wonderful husband who had dumped his coffee grinds into the regular garbage. That was what was smeared all over the floor along with the drippings from the meat packages. I do not know, nor has anyone told me, what to do with those smelly things -- they aren't supposed to go into garbage. I guess they go into the black box, but if I do that, then the raccoons and black crows will surely have a hearty feast outside.
Also, in looking up some helpful hints, I discovered that I've been breaking the regulations by using recyclable plastic bags, the ones they sell you at the Home Hardware at Elmvale when you ask for bags to put in the white bin for the kitchen.
Apparently, I'm supposed to make my own liners, carefully crafted from newspapers to which I no longer subscribe or grocery bags they no longer sell. The only paper bags I have are from the LCBO, and I'm desperately trying NOT to win the neighborhood contest for the most LCBO bags. It seems my cognitive behavioral therapy is at odds with saving the environment!
Now I don't know about you, but I'm a lazy Daughter of a Bitch and I'm not about to try anything crafty in an effort to correctly recycle my fruit and veg. The City has handy videos that show you how to make some sort of papier mache affairs to line the Green Bin. It involves used toilet paper and such and, frankly, I'm not prepared to go there.
So I'm going to continue keep breaking the regulations and use the plastic bags.
I don't care.
It's how I roll.
In my own defense, I do more recycling than anybody on my street. And not one garbage guy has come to my door to set me straight.
The good news is, the city is considering allowing people to use plastic recycle bags, so let's just say I'm ahead of the curve.
The municipal election is coming up, and all the talk has turned to garbage. Should weekly pick up be reinstated? Should the Green Bin be scrapped? Should we be allowed to put yard waste and dog poo into our recycling?
What do you do when you find a festering hand in the Green Bin?
In that case, do I call 3-1-1 or 9-1-1?
All good questions with no good answers.
There is actually a group of politicians who have banded together on a "garbage slate" to end the Green Bin program and reinstate weekly garbage pick up. I'm not voting for any of these guys because once the garbage issue is resolved, none of them will have anything to do and why should I pay the salaries of layabouts, snoring and picking their noses once their issue has been resolved?
Besides, the guy heading the group looks a lot like Doug Ford, and I'm not prepared to go down that road.
Like a lot of Ottawa residents, I don't understand most of what's going on in the election.
Perhaps I should have gone to an all candidates meeting, but I'm too lazy.
I don't pay much in the way of taxes anyway, as I've only earned $3,000 this year so far.
I don't care about transit, as I am a shut in and only take it once a year to go to Mike's Christmas party in the market.
I'm too freaked out by all the smelly and weird people on the bus getting there to notice if it's good or not and I'm too drunk to care on the way back.
Once in a while, Scott and I do a late night liquor run to downtown and I've noticed a lot of holes in the ground as well as construction, so somebody somewhere is doing something about transportation. I guess it's better than nothing.
I'm going to vote for the incumbent mayor Jim Watson because he hasn't done anything to screw up my life, that I know of, and he can't fix the Hydro rates even if he tried. I don't know the others, but I do know that new people cause trouble, cancel contracts and cost you and me money.
It's better the Watson you know, you know?
As for my city councilor, I'm picking a guy named Clinton Cowan. I don't know why. He has promised to get in, get out after two terms, and not stick around until he smells bad. Besides, there's another guy named Cloutier who has all the votes on my street and I like to be different.
I end this blog on a positive note.
Vote for somebody, anybody. Then you can call them up and ask them to come and clean up the garbage strewn around the neighborhood after the raccoons have upended everybody's garbage.
Life is messy, people.
You have to elect somebody to clean it up.
Comments
Post a Comment