Taking the back entrance into Tahoe Park, where the CoolDMZ clan resides, my wife and I keep noticing the banner advertising the Power Inn Business & Transportation Association’s self proclaimed “unique and lively event” Dinner at the Dump. Why work so hard to convince people not to conjure up the smell of a landfill when sampling your catered surf and turf? Why not just have a tour of the dump and let everybody have a free grab at some of the many usable items others have discarded but are usually protected against scavenging? Why not just put Jack Gallagher on top of a pile of concrete waste and have him do jokes?
Speaking of scavenging, big trash pick up day in my neck of the woods was last week, and my wife reported that while walking home with the kids, she came upon a woman scavenging somebody’s pile of garbage. Now, hey, we’ll all been there. One man’s broken chair is another man’s broken chair. But this woman fended off Mrs. CoolDMZ’s friendly smile with the following: “Back off! I got kids of my own.” Which reinforced my wife’s theory that ghosts of the Gold Rush still walk the streets of Sacto. Mostly the streets around the downtown bus station.
(On a side note, check out the redesign of CBS13/UPN31’s site. It’s a pretty good design, many notches above UPN 31’s previous one.)
The Sac Rag 
Does anyone else find it a tiny bit alarming that the end of the ad for this thing warns, “You’ll be so sorry if you miss it?”
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On my Tahoe Park street, almost all of our ‘big garbage’ was gone before they even came to collect. This happens every year but this was the worst. I have to agree with the wife as they can be a tad scary when you’re alone.
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We are witnessing the decline of western civilization when you need a gun to protect your Big Garbage Day pile from unwanted withdrawals and deposits. But, as I’ve been saying a lot since Katrina: Shoot one, make an example, and law and order ‘ll return quickly enough. Not that I’m advocating (but I’ll defend to the death your right to do so) such acts, but I sure wouldn’t convict. You go Mrs. CoolDMZ.
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Oh Squirty Tip, I wanted to shoot them but you weren’t around to help me with my aim. 🙂
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I affectionately call this neighborhood cleanup program “Sanford and Son Day” since there are scores of people in pickups who descend on the Pocket before the city employees come to collect the goods.
Just see it as an opportunity to get rid of items that you’d feel too guilty for taking the tax deduction on by taking them to Goodwill, but apparently someone still finds useful. All you do is hibernate in your home from dusk until dawn while the scavengers are hard at work outside — lock up the kids & pets and you’re fine.
And I totally agree that the PIBTA’s marketing tactics are way off base..ewww..(Have you ever noticed that most garbage smells the same, regardless of what’s in it?)
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Ah, home owners. You guys get all the fun. Here in my apartment, I just leave any large object by or leaning the dumpster and it magically disappears, usually within 60 minutes or so. When I first moved in, I started putting signs on things like old TV’s that said, “Still Works:Free.” But now I realize that that’s redundant, as anything sitting by the dumpster is by definition, free. You really are missing out though, by not only helping scavangers but also having the privilege of living right below them and listening to them shout at their boyfriends for cheating on them again…well of course he cheated on you, with all that free time he has since he lost his job at the stop-and-rob 6 months ago, what else is he going to do to fill his free time? I mean, sheesh, who didn’t see that coming?
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We could have a contest as to who has had the lamest thing taken from their big garbage pile. I am constantly amazed at what is taken sometimes. I will start with a non-working vaccuum with no cord. Gone in 30 minutes.
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Over on the Arden side of town we enjoy wagering on which items will go first between homes. “Bet you $5 my bike with no tires or handlebar goes before your 3 legged chair…you’re on!”
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I had an early-model breadmaker and an area rug stained by an entire jug of Crystal Light’s “Raspberry Ice” disappear sometime in a two-hour window when I was out to dinner during last year’s cleanup event.
Somewhere out there, there’s a family enjoying a cylidrical “loaf” of bread that’s likely burned on the outside, yet still raw in the middle.
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I’ve got an old welder, and it’s HILARIOUS to weld wire, old fencing, etc. to every metal item of junk, appliance, and old lamp, while wraping it around and in and out of the wooden stuff. If you are gonna take one thing, you gotta take it all (or at least you gotta bring your own bolt cutters).
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I like it.
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