On Primitive Beliefs and Recylcing
Setting out our recycling containers makes the wind blow. Hard.
Now I know you are either wondering why I harbor obvious superstition, or more charitably, you wonder what rational process might lead to such a conclusion.
The observational parameters are as follows:
a) Our recycling service gives us three little open bins, sort of like the milk boxes that are used by dairies to deliver gallon jugs of milk to reatailers.
b) Recycle-eligible materials almost by nature seem to be light and fluffy.
c) We live in a narrow valley along the Front Range of the Rockies knonw for the literally hurricane-force winds that blow through from time to time.
d) Our recycling schedule is on Mondays, bi-weekly (an ambiguous term that in this case means once every two weeks), which is about as arbitrary a schedule as far as Nature would be concerned as one could devise.
I have observed, over hundreds of events and dozens of years, that other than the traditional and predictable spring-time dawn and dusk chinooks, year-round and regardless of time of day, setting out our recycling is the ONLY time that these winds erupt spontaneously and destructively.
I flatter myself that I have an especially sharp, agile, and scientific mind, and as an amateur scientist, I am sceptical by nature. Unfortunately, I have not kept notes or done any statistical analysis to prove the truth of my observation that these two seemingly-unrelated occurences are, in fact cause-and-effect.
Nevertheless, I am aware that I might seem to others to be like the primitives who believe that cows standing under a tree make the day very hot. Which is just silly.
I am aware of all the logical fallacies such as confusing cause and affect, attributing cause and effect relationships to chance simultaneous events, just being stupid, and so-on. But on the other hand, if human beings have any evolutionary advantage, it is that we live and learn. And the smart ones only burn their hands at a fire once ... or maybe, if they're scientific, twice.
Yet I dutifully set out my recycling again and again in the vain hope that the wind won't blow this time, only to be forced to get my cardio-vascular exercise for the day by running around our neighborhood like a madman with our "Pik-Stik" gathering it back together.
This has become so common that the neighbors no longer bother to take out their own trash on recycling day ... they just wait for the wind to start and throw it out their doors, knowing that I will dutifully gather it and stuff it into totally non-PC plastic garbage bags for them.
Setting the question of religious beliefs aside for the moment, one might wonder why I don't devise some simple method of securing my recycling aginst the howling might of the moving air. Don't believe for a minute that I haven't tried!
I routinely lash our trash (as opposed to recycling) containers to our mailbox and one another with bungee cords in case the gods of the winds might mistake them for recycling. These containers actually have lids. On those days, I have spent many happy hours wandering the streets nearby to find and retrieve said lids, content in the knowledge that most trash (as opposed to recycling) is nasty, wet and heavy, and if anything like that wants to blow away, Pueblo can have it.
This morning, as Karen and I were taking the recycling out to the curb, I commented that it felt like it was going to snow. I do not exaggerate when I say that IMMEDIATELT AFTER I SPOKE large fluffy flakes started drifting lazily down all around us. Again, I guard against leaping to false conclusions, but I will tell you, we were both impressed. Knowing that that sort of snow is seldom accompanied by high wind, we continued in our task.
As I sat back down to finish my second cup of coffee and peruse the second page of the daily fascist pamphlet they call a newspaper here, I was not at all surprised to hear the familiar sound of trees groaning and shingles striking our siding as a seeming cyclone took form outside.
I just smiled. Nature, devious and sinister at heart, could no longer fool me. I had not been led astray by the deceptive gentleness of the morning's snow. I had been down this road all too often. I had actually put the damn recycling in a regular garbage can and lashed one of the recycling bins to the top to form a lid, then lashed the entire contrivance to our mailbox with bungee cords. My hope is, and here I may be in for an accute disappointment, that the recycling guy will recognize the green bin as more of a token or icon of recycling, and understand that the container below is not actually trash, but potential environmental gold ore.
I would not be surprised to look outsise later only to discover that our mailbox has blown down the street.
posted by Mique @ 9:15 AM
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