Wednesday, September 22, 2010

I am fighting a passive-agressive fight where there are no winners

Trash.
That's what this is about.

I live in a four-unit apartment building. There are two apartments on the left side (my side) and two on the right. The other people on my side are two guys; together we are mutually responsible for trash and recycling (i.e. taking the barrels* to the curb the morning of trash pick-up and putting them back in their "home" after trash pick-up). This is an easy task. But! Like most easy/domestic tasks, you don't always want to be the one who does it every single time. And I am. Even though most of the trash is theirs I bring it all to the curb (sometimes it's overflowing because they are unaware of the art of trash-bag closure). Then I drag everything back at the end of the day. I do this in work clothes. I do this in the rain. I do it.

Not only do I take these things to where they need to be, but I frequently separate their trash from the recycling because they don't separate anything. They are lazy and bad and they probably don't respect their mothers and I have no doubts that they do that thing where they use almost the last of the milk** but there's still a few drops left in the carton so they just put it back in the fridge so you don't get more when you go to the store and you're SO PISSED when you pour cereal into a bowl and then go to put milk on top and there's NONE. I bet they do that all the time.

So, this Monday I took the recycling to the curb and that was it. I did this because most of the recycling was mine. I left the trash where it was and then I went to work. I came home and it was still there, full. When I looked inside the barrels I found lots of loose trash*** and a ton of empty cans and water bottles. In the trash, not the recycling bin which is five inches from the trash and completely empty.

How long will this go on? I don't know. I am seriously considering bringing my trash to the Man's house until they take out the trash at least once. I wonder what they'll do... I wonder why I don't say anything? Probably because they're adults and should be capable of performing simple tasks.

How much do I suck?



*This is what people from Massachusetts call "trash cans". When in Rome...
**I love milk so much.
***Oh yeah, they also go to McDonald's a few times a week and then leave half the meal-trash on the lawn on the way to the trash barrels because I guess they can't quite make it while in their Big Mac stupors. So I pick this up because I don't want my cats learning about McDonald's and then wanting Filet-o-Fish sandwiches every day...

2 comments:

die Frau said...

That's so hard. Perhaps next time you could pile the trash on their doorstep. I'M KIDDING.

Ugh, good luck!

The Perfect Space said...

If there's one thing college taught us, it's that passive-aggressive attempts at getting others to perform household chores doesn't work. I would leave them a polite note indicating 1) that Somerville has MANDATORY recycling 2) which days are trash pick-up days and 3) that you will take the 1st 2 weeks of the month & they can take the 2nd. Not that you should have to do it at all because they are BOYS, but whatever.