Tradition gets trashed....

I thought I was hearing things.

It appeared to be a chicken singing “Tradition”, the timeless classic from the Broadway play and movie, “Fiddler on the Roof”.

My ears did not beseech me.  There was Chicken Little singing, or maybe clucking, the song.  Somewhere Zero Mostel is rolling over in his grave.

 

But why, C.L., why?

For years, he explained, it was a weekly, sometimes biweekly event when the streets of American echoed with the sound of steel drums being placed along the road.

Steel drums?  I asked.  I began to have the feeling that CL had spent too much time in the islands having a few too many Red Stripes.

CL assured me he had not and was just distraught about another tradition.   ‘Tradition, tradition, without our trash cans, we’ll all be rolling down the street..."

Really?  I was a bit confused so I asked him to explain.

“What’s to explain, the village has taken away yet another chore from my children.”

Explain.

“As a young chick I was always told by my parents to take out the garbage.  So once, maybe twice a week, I schlepped the cans and bags out to the curb so the waste haulers could pick them up.  Then, after school, I’d have to find the trash cans, which often rolled down the street.  But now, that’s all gone.”

You mean you don’t generate any more trash?

“Hardly the case,” he said. “Now, instead of traditional trash cans, I have a Toter.”

A what? 

“A Toter,” he said “A massive cart in which I put my garbage so the garbage man can easily collect it.”

You mean garbage men, don’t you?

“Nope,” C.L. said, “another tradition gone…no more men hanging from the back a truck, now it’s a one-man crew with a robotic arm that picks up the Toter, dumps it, and away he goes.”

C.L. looked distraught.  A longtime Sesame Street fan he worried where Oscar would live and what would happen if he too were to be swept away.

I asked C.L. if there was enough room for Oscar in a Toter. 

“Enough room?  You’ve got to be kidding.  The Toters are massive.  We can’t even keep ours in the coop.” 

Surely, I said, there must be smaller ones?  “Yeah,” he said, “but I don’t  know what size to get.”

Really, we’re talking garbage cans.

“Nope, we’re talking Waste Management, municipal contracts. So I have, in Starbucks lingo, a venti.  A  96-gallon garbage can on wheels.  You can also get a grande, which is a 64-gallon Toter or a 35-gallon tall.”

C.L., who is cramped in his coop, expressed concern that it would cost too much to replace his oversized trash can.  However, the village is working with Waste Management to drop the replacement fee for residents who want a smaller Toter.  But hurry, this offer is limited, residents must call Waste Management by June 7.

“Really?” He clucked.  “Then what happens?”  I explained after June 7 there is a $25 replacement fee.  But, rest assured, every May residents will have the chance to get a different size Toter for free.

“So much in the same way that sparrows return to Capistrano and the buzzards to Hinckley, the Toters can come back to Buffalo Grove?” 

Yep.

“Cool, but one more question…what’s a Toter?”

A Toter is actually the company that makes the carts. 

“Really?  So what are they actually?”

They are officially curbside collection carts.  And they don’t come cheap.  You can find them for sale online (now there’s a surprise…) at a cost from $69 for a 48-gallon size to $198 for a 95-gallon cart.

“I guess it’s progress of some sort,” C.L. said, “but I’ll miss the tradition clang of the metal cans and chasing them on a windy day.”

Relax, I told him.  Think of some of the possibilities that await.

“Like what?” he asked.

Well, a program just for kids.

“Really”?

Sure, Toter tots.

Or how about a place to dump old pizza containers – you could call it Toterice’s.

“Sick, very sick.”

But wait, imagine a remake of the Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy forgets to take out the garbage.

“And what would she say?”

Toter, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.