Today, Tim and I shared a humorous episode while doing some cosmetic and triage work in the alley behind the office.

For some reason, a blue recycling bin ended up placed behind our office near the steps to our back door. The bin sat by our back door, but our office had not ordered it- and I guess that didn’t matter. It looked like a trash receptacle, it was at our back door, and random people walking through the area used it vigorously.

This morning, Tim went outside for some reason, and there by the door he saw the recycling bin- full. And it was not merely full. It was overflowing, with trash also laying in piles all around it, surrounding it. It had become a popular trash can.

And of course, it wasn’t full of recyclables. It was full of discarded folders and old reports, and long strips of clear plastic wrap, and empty Styrofoam food boxes, and a few empty bottles, and a range of food leftovers. And it was also full of water.

A few days ago, a rare rain drizzled over Albuquerque, and appropriately enough, some of the rain that collected on our building’s roof found its way to the drainage spout that emptied directly into the open bin someone had placed right beneath it.

Naturally, Tim knew no one else would clean it up, so he set out to deal with the mess, and he asked me to come out and help him.

Tim found a shovel and grabbed some trash bags, and he started scooping up trash on the ground around the bin and putting it in a bag I held.

It was a peculiar experience because not more than 20 feet away down the alley, several homeless men were gathered fraternizing. And right directly across the alley from us, sitting on the ground with his legs fully extended and his back against the building wall, another homeless man just chilled, bottle nearby, merely watching us.

We got the ground gunk shoveled up and bagged. We next picked folders and small baggies of junk out of the open bin and transferred them into other trash bags. When we had leveled the trash in the bin down with the top rim, we closed the bin lid and slowly leaned the heavy container forward, dumping the water that filled it slowly down onto the alley way. The fellow across the street remained where he sat and enjoyed the show. The group yards away continued their conversation.

As we lowered the front of the bin to let the water near the bottom drain, we lost grip, and down went the bin, so that both of us doused a pant leg and a shoe in the moment. The bin has down, half of its trash had washed out onto the pavement before it, and Tim and I returned to the shovel and bag gig for a bit.

In time, we had 5 large trash bags half full of sopped trash hauled down and stuffed into the neighborhood trash compactor, and the recycling bin was also moved and left in the enclosure holding the giant compactor. Our back door area looked clean, solitary, and normal again.

The funniness of the whole project happened when one of the homeless club’s guys came over and thoughtfully wanted to put his empty beer bottle in the trash bag we were transferring the wet garbage into, and then proffered that he would have helped us if he had known we were going to put the trash in bags- halfway after we had finished the job 20 feet from him.

And then there was the guy lounging across the alley way as we worked. After a long spell of contemplative silence, as we were in the middle of pulling items out of the bin and moving them them into a bag, he broke his silence and asked Tim if he was a collector.