Big Trash Day

The Canadians have an event that I’ve never experienced anywhere in the U.S. where I’ve lived: Big Trash Day (although I don’t suppose that is it’s official name, but it’s how people I know refer to it). On Big Trash Day, which happens only one time each spring, you are allowed to put out some amount of big things (washing machines, couches, chairs, 4,000 plastic plant pots, etc.) and have it taken away by the trash collection department at no extra charge. You get to put it out several days in advance of the pick-up and everyone roams around to see if there’s anything they want to haul away in advance of the trash collection. It’s a pretty funny event, just seeing what is being thrown out and what is being carted off in advance.

Here in Pt. Roberts, we don’t have a Big Trash Day because, more or less, every day is Big Trash Day. Here, anyone can take some large item out and leave it near his/her house and next to the road in hopes that someone else will want such object and the original owner will not have to pay to get it to and in the dump collection. When I was last here, thirteen days ago, there was what appeared to be an old-time xerox copier sheltering in a blue tarp a block or so away. Haven’t been down there yet to see whether it’s found a new home (either someone’s house or the dump), though it’s hard to imagine who needs an old xerox machine that handles both letter and legal sized paper. Certainly no one had needed it during the two weeks I was here in April.

We don’t do much of this large disposing but about a year ago we did find ourselves with an oversized mirror in a horse-shoe-shaped wooden frame that we neither needed or liked (it came with the house). Eventually, during a spate of good weather, we put it out by the road and after a few days were pleased to see that it had disappeared. Good work! It had found a place in the world.

Today, Ed was out making a bed delivery (explanation below) and when he returned found that that horse-shoe (not exactly good luck here) mirror was returned to the place by the road where it had originally been put out…a year ago. It had not been there when he left to deliver the bed, a task that had not involved more than twenty minutes. Nearby was parked a car and a woman in the car. There aren’t any other houses right there, so it’s hard to know what she was doing other than unloading the mirror. Ed pulled in, engaged in a little conversation with her in which she nervously noted that she had been driving by and seen the mirror and was looking it over but thought it was too big for her use. Ed was pretty sure she had just unloaded the mirror, not least because her ‘driving by’ involved leaving by making a u-turn. Well, if so, there’s a lady who doesn’t understand the Pt. Roberts-style Big Trash Day.

Ed was delivering a bed to someone who had announced (on Point Interface, the local email list for residents) their need for such a bed for a visiting relative. We had a couple of extra ones up in our Canadian house, so he contacted the needer and arranged to bring it down with us today (atop our car). I hope this person understands the rules, though, because I surely don’t expect to have that bed turn back up at our house once the relative has returned to whence he or she came from.

And should anyone out there need a horeshoe-shaped-mirror with a wooden frame, get in touch. Better yet, just drive by and pick it up.