Diary of a Trash Collector

I have long made a habit out of recording my strange, sometimes fascinating finds as a trash collector for a private park. Passes the sometimes uneventful stretches of time that punctuate my day. Despite the routine, no day is ever quite the same.

To the casual observer, something ordinary as a cup or ubiquitous as a beer can warrants no further inspection. In my line of work, however, collecting trash for a living can hone your observational skills to an almost otherworldly level, allowing one to see patterns or realize something may literally be out of place. More on that later.

Now, I am not into going through trash at all. That’s too weird. Nor do I stoop to rifling through dumpsters I collect from. Ewww. All that I record is visible on the grounds I pick up at, mostly along roads. The dollar-menu McDonald’s cup stuffed with Pick-3 lottery tickets near a ramp close to a semi-industrial area. Wine boxes evenly spaces every 100 yards or so every Monday along a road used as a short cut leading to an interstate. A cheap liquor stash with unopened bags of Doritos I sometimes come across in the same two wooded spots between my route and a dark, parallel road near an affluent neighborhood. All dutifully recorded in my little, nondescript black book. It is the odd, sometimes humorous and always memorable objects that find a place in my (by now) well-worn book I’ve kept for four years and counting.

Always a “devil is in the details” person that loves a good story, both the job and my natural bent to scribe my day-to-day existence I like to entertain myself as to why I find the random, yet noticible patterns of my finds. The suburban mom trying discreetly to obliterate signs of her alcoholism on her route to her government job at the nearby military base. The secretive husband who disguises his alarming gambling habit from his wife, yet justifies his spending habits by getting tea off of the value menu. The pouty emo teen whose parents give him everything money can buy, but he escapes to the woods where his stash is to down Fireball with nasty Cool Ranch Doritos. I may never know how accurate my musings are, but they are funny to me. Sometimes, in the case of the liquor stash, I will bring my own stamp to the situation by leaving one bag and one unopened sample bottle of vodka on a nearby log so that from a distance the site looks cleaned up. I’m sure the person with the hideaway stash didn’t appreciate my jerky sense of humor, but oh well.

It is now the holiday season. A joyous time of year, even for the people that clean up after others. I even had it on a radio station that played corny Christmas songs. It was during my singing off-key to the music playing in my dump truck that I created what I think was one of my finest masterpieces. I was so inspired by the “Be Good Times” earrings I found and the two used Magnum condoms that I found cleaning up litter at a lookout point, I recorded a poem based on the “Twelve Days of Christmas: The Trash Collector’s Rendition”. All that particular day, I would jot down the 100% real finds in my bawdy version in my black book. I never show the contents off in my black book (after all, it’s private) but I emailed the edited carol to my boss. Later that day when my shift was over, my normally poker-faced boss cracked a smile and a cackle when he told me he read my rather NSFW version of a beloved Christmas tune. No one likes a laugh better than world-weary, somewhat hardened maintenance workers.

However, there was one find this holiday season that I would keep between me and my little black book. I have found some weird stuff in my time, but never had I ever come across such an extraordinary haul as I did that wintry Christmas Eve afternoon.

A cold, biting day looking as dreary as I felt inside from missing the sun, I went through the normal motions of my day collecting trash. People actually weren’t such litterbugs today. No roadkill to scrape off the road, nothing out of the ordinary, until I came to a pull-out overlooking a pond and groaned out loud.

Someone had abandoned a hideously-upholstered recliner, most certainly past its prime, sat misshapen and out-of-place in its serene outdoor setting. People are such assholes sometimes. Upon pulling my truck up to it, I saw that it was ripped and stained on its dingy exterior. It looked like it smelled, and it sure enough did. Thankfully, it just smelled like wet dog and not bodily fluids. The chair was large and “Proudly made in the USA” as I would see on its tag turning it on its side and looking underneath. I was wondering how I would hoist it into the truck alone. I am a strong woman, but I had doubts due to its sturdy construction. Intriguingly, the fabric underneath the foot rest of the chair was not ripped up at all. It had a discreet, but noticible Velcro edition, roughly the size of a business envelope, sewn into it. Baffled, I hesitated. What on earth could be inside?

As I opened the Velcro lining, a small burlap package fell out. It was covering a rectangle at object of some kind. Looking around, making sure no other cars were driving up and no one was there, I pick up the burlap with gloved hands. Whatever was in the burlap was solid and thick. I unraveled the wrapped burlap and nearly dropped what I had in my hand in astonishment. Holy shit, what the actual fuck? I immediately went back into my truck with what I unwrapped, locked the cab and kept my hands hidden from the truck windows.

In the burlap was a stack of bills. Hundred-dollar bills, and a few fifty’s mixed in. After totaling it twice, it came up to a little over twenty thousand dollars. Merry fucking Christmas to me! I couldn’t believe my luck, nor the fact that no one had driven up to interrupt me. Some of the benefits of working alone, and it held true on this day. It was small enough to stuff into my pocket, but I felt the satisfying thickness of the bills strain uncomfortably against my hip. Of course, I wasn’t that put off by it. What an incredible find!

I almost forgot about the chair! Feeling a little guilty, I went back outside with my pocketknife to further search the lining of the chair. I didn’t find anything else, but I was a-ok with that. Even better, I found that the chair could be disassembled into two pieces, and I was able to throw the back and then base portions of the chair away into my dump truck. Elated and humming more Christmas songs, I uneventfully drove away and finished the rest of my shift.

As with any other unusual object I come across, I marked it in my black book. I taped one of the fifty dollar bills to the inside cover between the paper liner and leather for good luck. Who says trash can’t be treasure?