Room Divider

Further in the saga of garbage pickup.  Waste Management never called me back as they faithfully promised they would nor did they pick up my garbage yesterday.  Thought about it.  Winter is coming up and, while I can easily collect my garbage and take it to the dump myself periodically, I rather liked having it picked up weekly.  I could switch to another company but there were issues w/ that too.  Hadn't quite decided on what to do.  Hung out the clothes on the line early - suppose to cloud up by afternoon and I had lots of other stuff to do today.  Whip came out to keep watch (one of her many duties).  I noticed she was sitting at alert in the middle of the courtyard intent on something down the driveway.  I looked and a small truck was backed into my driveway.  A man in a reflective green vest hoisted my garbage can onto the back of the truck, and put a new garbage can in it's place.  When he noticed me he started walking down the drive so I and Whip met him half way.  His name was Rick and he said he had dumped my garbage, given me a new container, and started to explain why they were picking up on the opposite side of the road.  I cut him off (as nicely as I could) and said this might have gone smoother if they would have communicated with me on what was going on.  He said he understood (an excellent answer by the way) and he hoped we could work it out.  (Also a good tactic to use the 'we' as if it was a shared problem.  The guy must have listened during Problem Resolution training.)   I said I would leave the garbage can on my neighbor's side of the road.  If it got knocked over and crunched by big machinery, I'd let him know and they would replace it.  He said of course.  I said in the winter though I would not put it in the shoulder of the road if my neighbor's field access wasn't plowed.  I would just have to tell them to skip pick up.  I'm not good at  making concessions.  For the moment though it solves this problem and I did appreciate him being brave enough to talk directly w/ me.  ...  Of course, I might have it all wrong.  Waste Management has asked to come to a Planning Committee meeting to make a pitch to be the exclusive garbage pickup company for the whole town.  Maybe he found out I'm on that committee.