When Your Neighbors Help You Garbage Pick
I love my neighbors. They don’t know me, but they keep me nourished. One Saturday afternoon stroll through the alley, I noticed an overflowing garbage/recycling pile. I had to make a pit stop.
Not more than five seconds passed until I realized I found a goldmine. I started finding spices, canned goods, produce, shampoo, you name it. This was going to be a big, big haul. I picked up an empty box nearby in the alley, and started filling it up. I was completely in the zone, ravenously converting landfill-destined trash into stomach-filling treats.
Out of nowhere, my neighbor came around the corner, “Do you need any help?”
Normally in these situations, I’m pretty cautious and aware of my surroundings. Any noise and I’d probably scram out of there – even though what I’m doing is providing a societal benefit. Just a weird stigma. Anyways, on this day, in broad daylight, I was so zoned in that I wasn’t even remotely concerned.
Without missing a beat, I said “No, thanks though! Just looking for something that I lost,”. I was completely relaxed and played it off by answering as vaguely as possible.
To my surprise, she responded, “Are you sure? Do you need any gloves?”
“Yeah, I think I juusst about got it,” I responded, not having any idea what I was actually looking for.
“Okay, good luck!” she said as she went inside.
As I finished up with my excavation, I felt stunned and amused. I was expecting a severely awkward reaction but was so taken aback by the interaction. She offered to help me dig through her trash! Metaphorically speaking, I was picking up food from my neighbors and instead she was offering to deliver it! The weird part was that the interaction felt remarkably normal. It’s like she was used to having someone dig through her trash.
“Love Thy Neighbor,” I thought as I heated up some food in the microwave.
Well said Gaucho Panda.
I agree. The shame is there are food pantries that would take canned goods and the file cabinets and “stuff” could have gone to the Salvation Army. We are choking off Mother Earth will all of our sh—!