“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 910 (Tuesday) – trash night

It was a crazy long day, which started obscenely early. At 12:45 a.m., I got up to use the bathroom. Then Winston wanted to go outside. Then the fun began.

A red, regular-sized, not-SUV vehicle came down the street and executed a turn in the middle of the street in front of the house. It swung close to the fence and the front end knocked over the yard waste barrel, which had not been emptied in the trash day festivities. It seemed deliberate, or maybe the act of an impaired driver. The lid came off and the barrel fell to its side in the driveway.

The car then traveled the space of the shared driveway to the neighbor’s house, cut close to their stone wall, and tapped their wheeled trash bin, pushing it forward. The driver moved up alongside the bin and an arm extended from the open window and grabbed the top of the barrel. There was a bit of fumbling, and the car was driven away. With the bin wheeling alongside the car, held by the hand out the window. 

I went out and put the lid on the yard waste barrel, set it upright, and returned inside, went upstairs and got the phone. The car returned and made another three-point turn in front of the house, then headed back up the street. I reconsidered the wisdom of leaving the yard waste barrel on the street and pulled it to the end of the driveway close to the house and the empty trash and recycling bins.

Just taking someone's
trash bin for a drive.

The car returned. The headlights shone onto the storm door where I stood and I wondered if they thought it was a ghost and wished I was wearing a floaty, ghostly nightgown instead of drawstring pants and a tee shirt. This time, as the turn was executed and the car drove off, I saw that an arm was extended from the passenger side, clutching and dragging someone’s round plastic yard waste barrel on that side of the car. It bumped along the road and against the side of the car. Multiple cell phones were illuminated in the vehicle as if there was filming taking place. 

I was the audience for four acts of the hijinks. In Act IV I got a mostly obscured photo. The police were phoned at Act III, but the call dropped. Multiple times, often without ringing. Thank goodness it wasn’t a big emergency. Someone from the station called me back after Act IV of the performance and there was a complete conversation and a promise to send a patrol car over to “attempt contact” with the vehicle.

It was over except for the wondering. Is this the latest Tik Tok challenge? Frat House prank? National "take a stranger's trash bin for a ride" night? Is there a yard full of trash bins and yard waste barrels being held for ransom and what is the ransom? And the biggest question -- why did they not remove any of the three neighbor bins which are still in front of my house? Cripes, I cannot catch a break. All three still stood in front of the house at daybreak. And sunset. And even still.

It was hard to get back to sleep after that. There was the wondering. There was the paranoid worrying about retribution after potentially being seen in the doorway. It took a couple hours to get back to sleep, and then, just a few hours later, it was time to get up for work. Ugh.

The ruler of the workday seemed to be Mercury Retrograde, which began on the 9^th. There were problematic documents that suddenly opened as “read only” and wouldn’t allow requested edits to be made. Problematic content reviews. Network connections that kept dropping. Sudden changes requested to already approved content. Keyboard keys stuck. And so on. 

The day bumped along like a trash bin being dragged alongside a moving vehicle. It could be a long and interesting stretch until October 2. And will there be more trash bin thievery?