Garbage Lover

It was just another Thursday night, another drive all around town… checking out the dumpsters. I turned the radio up… yawn. Another rerun of “This American Life”, one of my favorite radio shows. Ira, I’ve heard it all before. I switched on the ipod and played some ambient techno stuff, it always relaxes me when I do this. Soft music played as I whizzed around town behind restaurants, inside apartment complexes, searching for a perfect trash bin in which to indulge myself. See, I’ve got this trash fetish. Wait, before you judge me. It’s strange I know, but totally harmless. Since I was a kid, I’ve just always loved being around the stuff. It turns me on for reasons I can’t explain. So, rather than denying it, I’ve chosen to embrace it and just enjoy my weekly jerkoff inside a smelly dumpster. Let me tell you, if you could understand how happy it makes me, you might try it yourself. ...

It’s October. The air is crisp and cool, perfect for a dumpster explorer like me. It’s about 11pm on a Sunday night, and my trashy journey begins. I lock my front door behind me and step out into the night air in my old doc martens, some grubby old cargo pants and a retro-styled t-shirt with Oscar the Grouch on the front. It’s trash night, and the streets in my neighborhood are lined with garbage cans, overflowing with black and white garbage bags, some spilling their contents onto the street… cups and papers blowing in the night breeze. I sniff the air to see if I can catch a whiff of all that lovely garbage… not close enough, so I walk down the street for a closer look. One particularly lovely looking pile of white bags catches my eye. I walk to it and begin feeling the bags. They are heavy with kitchen waste, my all time favorite. Looking closely, I can see the stuff inside, looks like old salad and macaroni, mixed with used napkins and paper plates, a can or two, plastic bags… you know, your run on the mill garbage. I like these bags, so I heave a few out of their cans and place them closer to the curb for “pickup”. ...