We recently moved so that we could be near our awesome daycare center (AKA The Jones Family Entertainers). Because the awesome (read: not awesome) train network in Boston doesn't go near their home, we chose a nearby city that I shall pseudonyminously refer to as Canterbury. The city is very well kept, and the people here are, ummm, well... affluent, white, Obamaniacal, and averse to anything not organically made. We live on the seedy side of town - where people (ugh) rent apartments in two-family homes. I overheard the town's skateboarding teenage hooligans the other day complaining about school. They were using words like, "dang" and "shoot." I made Squiggles cover her ears, of course.
Canterbury has many charms (mostly in the form of walking paths and lovely ponds), but it has one quirk that I will never understand: the town does not collect your trash. Instead, you take it to a "transfer station" (apparently "dumps" are not classy enough) yourself. Apparently, the people of this city are far above setting their trash out near the road for everybody to see; however, they don't mind hauling rotting refuse around in the backs of their SUVs and congregating at the "transfer station," where the air is thick with the smell of rotting leftover nicoise salad from Trader Joe's.
Thankfully, Tim transfers our trash. I did, however, go with him recently, and there were the SUVs, the women wearing designer jeans and high heels, and the men wearing Polos and product in their hair. They were carrying bags, bins, sacks, and boxes while they chatted cheerfully and took turns at the various dumping sites. It made me like them more.
I really appreciate that the woman below was texting when I shot this photo:
8 comments:
Years ago some friends of mine were moving to "Canterbury" and asked about some other friends that already lived there and what they did with their rubbish (he was a doctor). I said they go to the dump, just like everybody else. I mean transfer station.
heh heh. I guess we're more upper class in Dayton than I thought. We do take all our recycling to a large dumpster, though. I always wonder why it's not sorted. who sorts it later? Maybe I should see if Mr. Roger's gas a video on it. . . . transferring I mean.
Oh my! Even in the most remote places of Namibia, our trash was always collected.
Yup, I've never understood that about *Canterbury*. I thought I was from the most yuppedy place on earth (Redmond, WA). At home we have to divide our garbage into about 25 different color-coded recycling bins and the trash people actually dig through our trash to make sure we didn't throw away anything that could have been recycled - or we get fined like $100 or so. But hey - we have no problem throwing it all out on the sidewalk for everyone to see. It makes the neighborhoods look like Mickey Mouse just threw up all over them, but all the colors tend to make people happy I think. :)
Tim in a saint for being willing to do the transferring.
I love the pictures so much. And also the men in polos and product in their hair comment. I hope the hooligans of Canterbury don't organically free-rangedly egg your house.
I'm a little confused. I thought you lived in Winchester. Oh well, I remember when we burned all the burnables and buried the rest. We didn't wear polos and had no product for the hair.
Wow, I really want to move to Canterbury.
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