Since we moved into our new place at the first of the month, we've been having some issues with our trash...mainly the issue being that we don't know what to do with it.
The system here works like this; the trash man comes whenever he feels like it, sometimes once a week, sometimes 3-4 times a week. Apparently there's some kind of route that they have, some kind of routine, but we haven't quite figured it out. All we know is that when you hear the kid walking down the street blowing a whistle, the truck will follow roughly 4 minutes after.
Our problem...we're never at home when the whistle-kid comes. We knew how the system was supposed to work, but after a week, the trash was piling up inside the gate and we didn't exactly know what to do. So, we just put it outside in the street and figured now it's there when the whistle-kid comes and it will get picked up, right? Besides, taking a look at our street, it's not exactly the epitome of a suburbian neighborhood with manicured lawns, to us it looks like that's what everyone else does. And, in one of our other apartments, you actually were supposed to take your trash to the corner and put it next to the hole down to the sewer...not in the hole, but next to it. So we thought this idea would work.
Wrong. Apparently there's a herd of about 15 goats that lives across the street in the soccer field/lake and they really like it when you just put your trash in the street. So they spread it all over, especially in front of the neighbors house and when he got up in the morning to go somewhere, the goats were in his way and he couldn't get his car out of the gate. So our landlord heard about this, and then we heard about it. Time for a new plan.
This time, we thought that surely we can get it out to the guy with the whistle, we'll just have to listen real hard and drop whatever we're doing as soon as we hear it. Well, that didn't work...we had the same problem as before, we never heard the whistle.
Now again, the neighbors are complaining...we don't really know why...we just realize that our trash is becoming the talk of the neighborhood and, being new, we'd really like to make a good impression on the neighbors.
So the new plan is this...there's a whole bunch of young guys who sit in lawn chairs across the street outside of their organization. They're always asking us if we have any odd jobs to help them make money....enter Omar. We figure that since he's just sitting around over there all day long, he's bound to be here and hear the whistle every time. So we pay Omar $1 every time he takes out our trash with one exception....if we hear the whistle and beat him to it, he doesn't get paid. So now, it's not like we're racing him down there or anything, but it is kind of fun to watch when you hear the whistle. Omar jumps out of his chair, races full speed into our gate and then out with the trash like he's playing capture the flag or something. So we've solved the trash problem and we get a little entertainment!
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