Dump Nazi

I used to enjoy trips to the dump. For a guy like me who often makes something good out of someone else’s trash, it was a fun place. Now it’s a “transfer station” and no fun at all. They don’t even allow picking. That was 3/4 the fun of taking a load to the dump.

The last few weeks I’ve been loading junk into the truck, a little at a time. Finally, I had to admit that it was time to get rid of it all. I tied and it all down and fired up the truck. Then I shut the truck down and hunted around for the darn dump permit. No sense pulling up to the place without a permit.

Could I find the nice crisp permit that’s been in my way for weeks? Of course not. So I fired up the veggie van and drove across town to the town hall. The town clerk met me on the way out. She was locking up the place. Small towns keep haphazard hours so perhaps she was taking an early lunch?

“Did I just miss you,” I said.

“No, I just have to run something over to the post office. I’ll be right back.”

My town is so small that when the clerk steps out, she locks the door behind her. On the bright side, it’s so small that the post office is located right across the street. She was right back and quickly wrote out the necessary permit.

Then it was off to the transfer station. The Dump Nazi guards the gate. People have to park in a designated area until he motions them on to the scale. That’s where he weighs the load and checks the permit.

“What do you have?” he said.

I rattled off a long list of the stuff I could remember.

“Any tires or air conditioners?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

Of course my word is no good for him. He has to poke around my load for a bit. Finally he tells me which piles to unload the different stuff at.

The first thing I unload is a broken dishwasher.

“That doesn’t go here,” said a voice. The Dump Nazi had followed me to the back side of the facility.

“It’s almost all plastic.” I said.

“No matter, there’s some metal on it so it goes into the metal pile.”

Right.

After unloading everything but the metal, I pick up the dishwasher to load it up for the trip across the lot. Until this point I’d kept pretty clean. The dishwasher tipped a bit during the loading process and poured a load of foul water all over my shirt.

Then I unloaded the rest of the stuff at the metal pile. The Dump Nazi watched me the whole time, his eyes scanning the load for contraband trash. On the way out trucks have to go back over the scale where you wait for the guy to finish picking his nose. Eventually he waved me through.

Bureaucracy has ruined the simple joy of going to the dump. Now I’m happy that most stuff gets recycled these days. I never did like waste, but dealing with a miniature Hitler is something I could do without.

-Sixbears