Garbage in, Garbage out...Garbage Back In

Dear Madam or Sir or Whatever:

Your ninth violation this month of this City's household trash/recycling ordinances warrants this citation. You have ignored our earlier Memo -- clear, concise, written in simple language, and using mostly English words of one syllable. Therefore, PLEASE BE ON NOTICE: YOU ARE HEREBY PLACED ON PROBATION pending your future performance. Your infractions are detailed below:

Violation of Neighborhood Standards for Displayed Labels --Bottles

The Neighborhood's Standards for  publicly displayed labels  in all recycling bins are found at Appendix A of the Department's Summary of Residential Trash Guidelines (the smaller, phone book-sized one). Only labels of a certain caliber may be face up in the bin while curbside.

You have repeatedly flouted this Rule by displaying the following brands on bottles placed ostentatiously into the bin:  "Mandelbaum's Family-Size Seltzer," "Pappy Yokum's Home-Style Moonshine De-LUX," "Williamsburg Slivovitz," and "Randy's Discount Herring in Wine-like Sauce."

Following your last citation for these violations, the Department recorded several instances where you had attempted to glue counterfeit champagne labels (you misspelled it, by the way, there is no "y" in "champagne") onto your recycling glass -- only to have them peel off in the snow, revealing your pedestrian proclivities.  The Department is saddened by this pathetic behavior, and we urge you to seek professional help.

We recognize that certain of our citizens are savoir faire-ally challenged, yet we are also constrained to remind you that your coarse and vulgar tastes reflect poorly on the village as a whole, driving down property values and fomenting an atmosphere in which loutish behavior flourishes and spreads like mold. Certain handicaps are provided for persons in your category, and you are encouraged to review the diagram of easy-to-follow instructions for turning disfavored brands face down on trash day. (See Appendix B).

By way of example only, the Department notes that in the same 30-day period when you were foisting discount herring jars and jumbo seltzer bottles on society-at-large, your immediate neighbors to your left and to your right submitted the following: Dom Pérignon '98, imported Pellegrino (glass only), Martini & Rossi, Appellation Chablis Premier Cru Controlée Chateau Très Sophistiqué ('95), Remy Martin’s venerable Louis XIII “Black Pearl” cognanc, and 8 year-old Laphroaig, single malt.

While your past performance demonstrates beyond cavil that you could not be expected to attain such standards in our lifetime, it is, nonetheless, a supposed truism that, given enough typewriters and monkeys and a sufficient span of time (say, an eternity), a great novel could one day emerge. What we're saying (in a style perhaps unfamiliar to subscribers of Sloth Smackdown Monthly) is this: So long as you insist upon acquiring your bitters at the Marché Rapide de Dogpatch, we would at least encourage you to be discreet when disposal time rolls around.   

Violation of Neighborhood Standards for Displayed Reading Materials

As you are, doubtless, aware, numerous Supreme Court rulings from the Burger Court (1969-1986),  guarantee your right to read whatever trash you like in the privacy of your own home. As long as it stays there, it is none of our business. The moment you commingle it outside with the rest of your trash, however, it falls within our jurisdiction. See United States v. Oswald, 783 F.2d 663, 666 (6th Cir.1986); California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988) (no reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage deposited on the curtilage). The materials you choose to discard on a regular basis causes us to pray vigorously for the welfare of your children, but we are not, after all, the Department of Social Services.

A cursory glance at even a tiny sample of the printed matter you flaunt so shamelessly on pick-up day leads us to conclude that your view of the world is warped by that class of periodicals most commonly associated with schlock supermarket checkout counters and racetracks. You may assume that others in the vicinity share your seemingly religious devotion to the breathless comings and goings of Brittney, Angelina, Brad et al., the lurid exploits of underworld dons and donnettes of New Jersey and Moscow, and the accomplishments of dogs who have been trained to do simple math, open the refrigerator, and flush the toilet. But you assume wrong.

We fear that our earlier admonitions to you in this regard have gone unheeded due principally to your innate inability to recognize them as having been framed in the imperative. So let us put it to you plain: The Department will no longer tolerate the crap you spread out like a billboard every Monday night betraying what passes in your world for "values" and making transparent the venue for your sorry upbringing (id est, a barn).

In other words:  Stop!  Just stop putting this drek outside on the curb! If you ignore this directive, our engineers are under strict orders to retaliate in kind, that is to say, to shovel it all back in the tool shed from whence it came and where you maintain the rest of your bizarro collection.

For the record, we are well aware of your lame effort to stave off the instant citation this morning by stocking your paper bin with back issues of the Utne Reader, The New Yorker, and Commentary. Did you think that our highly-trained professionals would not deduce in a flash that that you could not possibly have reversed a lifetime of self-imposed illiteracy overnight and acquired an insatiable appetite for culture and foreign policy? Did you really suppose that we would not spot the labels on these journals sporting the name and address of the person who lives next door?

What kind of a miscreant stoops so low as to steal his neighbor's garbage in a futile attempt to impress the Department of Sanitation? We've said it before, but in your case it cannot be gainsaid:  We were, and remain, singularly unimpressed.

Appendix C sets forth the standards for acceptable disposal of printed matter in this community.  Please find someone who knows how to read (all of the words on the page), and have them explain it to you.

Violation of Neighborhood Standards for Disposal of Yard Waste
We don't know where the sludge comes from that you dump outside each week, presumably when you have tired from your "science experiments."  Frankly, we don't want to know. But we do know this:  It is not yard waste -- not even close. Not only will we not pick it up, should it ever reappear in the specially-marked barrel (provided to you free-of-charge by the taxpayers, among whom, we presume you do not count yourself), we will arrest you, pursuant to our temporary status as deputy sheriffs, conveyed upon us by a special act of the Legislature promulgated in response to you and you alone.

Miscellaneous Violation

Finally, please restrain your cat. Virtually all of the uses he has been observed to have made of the City's trash barrels and recycling bins -- not only the ones in front of your residence, but also, more particularly, your neighbor's -- are prohibited. Should you have any doubt about this, your attention is directed to Appendix D.

You shall remain on probation until the Department is satisfied that you have addressed each of the issues set forth herein.

HEREOF FAIL NOT, FOR YOU SHALL ANSWER YOUR FAILURE TO ABIDE BY THIS ORDER UNDER THE PAINS AND PENALTIES OF LAW.

 The Commisioner of Sanitation