Garbage

So I have to begin sharing our ongoing family saga of Matthew and our garbage. He has an obsession that has been growing for quite sometime now with anything to do with garbage. He is such a fantastic helper in emptying and taking out the garbage. I have had to stock up on boxes of garbage bags because we'll find him taking the garbage out after a brand new bag is put in and one person has thrown something away. He spends countless amounts of time in our side yard, rearranging the 5 huge garbage cans we have. He opens and closes them, moves things between cans and places them in different spots as he so feels at that moment.

He waits every Monday to put the garbage cans out on the curb...he can typically do it himself...you cannot see him behind the huge cans, but he is there rolling them out and placing them on the curb. He knows which week are the green (recycling) cans and which week the black (yard waste) cans go out. He keeps track of that each time he takes them out. He talks about it all week, til the next Monday to put out garbage. Once the garbage is out on the curbs, he can be found climbing up onto our neighbors garbage cans, opening the lids, checking what is inside...he gets very upset if the garbage cans are not actually all the way full. He knows and will correct anyone who gets the day wrong of when the truck comes to pick up garbage which is on Tuesday about lunch time. He hears the truck and runs out front to watch him collect the whole street. Matthew then goes to typically 3 other neighbors and pulls in their cans up to their fences. He has to place them perfectly against the fence. He does this every week and talks and dreams about it almost every other minute of the day.

So we were on our trip to Manhattan beach and Matthew was very concerned about our garbage. He wanted our friend, Dena to go put the garbage cans out. He knew it was the black garbage turn. We texted Dena, she did it for him of course. And for the two days before we got back the first thing out of his mouth in the morning was "i check the black garbage to see it empty"...we reassured him he could and that Dena had done a great job.

Funny enough about two weeks ago at one of the kids baseball games, after the game, Troy was talking to the other coach of the opposing team (we won by 7 runs) about whatever men talk about in that situation, and the other coach (name is Po)...asked Troy where he lived. Troy said here in town, he asked more specifically, Troy told him our street name and Po asked, on the circle....Troy said ya off Cabrillo and Po informed us that he picks up our garbage and had recongzied Matthew!!! Matthew was awestruck...the garbage man was right there. As we all walked to the parking lot, Matthew was concerned because he couldn't find Po's truck!!! We explained that it was at his work. Well, the next week, Po came by, picked up the garbage then came back to the door and gave Matthew a miniture green garbage can....which can now be found, out in the side yard, next to the other green garbage cans, usuallly with some kind of paper wadded up inside as garbage!

We love our Matthew. He keeps us all smiling!!! So despite our hopes for a star athlete...he may choose Waste Management as a career.