Prologue

One of my fond childhood memories was going to the dump with my dad.

In those days, "the dump" was a big hole or pit dug in the ground, big as half a football field. Most of the dirt from the hole was trucked out and used as landfill somewhere else. People paid a few bucks at the entrance, drove to the edge of the pit, and threw stuff in.

The "stuff" could be as innocuous as grass clippings and old newspapers, or as toxic as antifreeze, paint, old televisions, refrigerators... The bigger or noisier the stuff was, the more fun it was for me to push off the edge and watch it tumble and crash down below.

When the smell or level of stuff in the pit neared the top, dirt was dumped back over it, packed down, and grass planted. Another pit was dug somewhere else, and so it went.

Admittedly, there were downsides to the old dumps. Years later, the huge subsurface chemical compost piles would endanger ground water, seep methane gas into nearby basements, and create dangerous sinkholes as the ground continued to settle.

But still... it was a lot more fun than recycling.

Nowadays, people in our city have to separate different kinds of stuff into different containers picked up on different days by different trucks for different disposition. It's a big pain in the ass.

And woe to anyone that puts the wrong stuff out on the wrong day! Such gaffes could result in strongly worded letters from the city. In melodramatic prose they explain how nothing less than heroic intervention at the recycling center had saved us all from the apocalyptic mixing of metal soup cans with plastic milk bottles.

My wife has always been happy to let me deal with our household's waste processing responsibilities. I've tried to get her and our boys to help separate stuff during the week, but in the end it's always me sorting it out in the garage.

And with that, the stage is set for our little story...