I'm sorry, but, no...that's not okay.

Tomorrow morning is our trash pick-up. I always put our bins out to the sidewalk the night before.

I had to leave the house for the evening at 4:30 this afternoon. I brought out the trash and recycling bins before I left so I wouldn't have to do it in the dark once I got home tonight.

The way the billing for our trash pick-up works is that you are charged by the size of your receptacle. The larger it is, the more the company charges each month. Dick and I are only two people (with an occasional gay boyfriend) so the smaller size usually works out fine for us. It's just large enough for the amount of trash we have each week.

Last week, we had a delivery that was packed with a few large styrofoam squares (don't you hate those very un-PC, non-recyclable, pain-in-the-ass-to-dispose-of things?). They are really large, and would take up more than the capacity of our trash bin. My plan was to put one large square of styrofoam out with our regular trash each week until I've gotten rid of all of them.

When we got home tonight, I went around the house collecting the trash, getting ready to bring it outside. I picked up one of the styrofoam squares to put in the bin as well.

When I opened the lid to our bin, I discovered that our trash bin was already full! Someone else had thrown away their bag of trash in our trash bin! (I already had one full bag of trash at the bottom from earlier in the week, so it hadn't been completely empty) Normally, I guess I would think that would be okay, but still, not kosher. I mean, come on, we get charged by the capacity of the bin, and I plan for that amount of space. But tonight, and for the next couple of weeks, I really need as much room as I can get.

The topper is, the person left their opened mail at the top of their bag of garbage. Now I know the name and address of the neighbor who used my trash can. I looked over (a couple of houses down) at their bins, and saw that they were full. I guess they assumed I had put out all of my trash, had some extra room, and that it would be okay for them to encroach in my bin.

I realize that this is not a big deal, but still, it kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Next week, I'm going to fill their bin with all of my styrofoam! (kidding, of course, but the idea makes me smile in that vengeful sort of way....)