Every year, there is one day when we can throw anything away. ANYTHING.

Sure, they say that they won’t pick up huge items or chunks of cement, but last year, they took the remains of a desk bigger than we could carry and chunks of cement from our neighbor’s pile, so I pretty much figure that they’ll take anything. Probably even a human body.

While this is a wonderful convenience to the residents of the area, it makes for some ugly neighborhoods.

We’re not supposed to put out the garbage more than a week before our designated “We’ll Help Get Rid of Those Dead Bodies For You” Day, but a week is a long time to live with the six-foot piles of garbage that accumulate on the side of the road.

Worse still, I’m continually tempted to pick through the garbage piles of my neighbors. This year, I got Madison’s old Halloween decorations. She put them out there when she moved. I am now a proud owner of seven plywood gravestones and a very convincing witch’s broom (I don’t think it’s quite as fast as a Nimbus 2000, but we’ll have to see).

I also found a nearly intact desk. I knocked on the stranger’s door and asked him if he would mind if I took it. He was so grateful. His daughter had bought a bigger desk and he didn’t want to see the old one go to the garbage, but he had no one to give it to. I can remove the black layers of spray paint, sand out the letters engraved on the side and refinish it. I’ll probably be able to sell it at our garage sale for at least 40 bucks.

Our garbage pickup is July 17th, which is Monday. From now on, I’m only collecting pictures of the neighbor’s trash…