We just don't get enough credit for all the recycling we do

All you two-Coke-a-week, Sunday-only newspaper freeloaders owe me money. But we'll get to that. First, breaking news from Plymouth!

Says the paper: "Plymouth rejects plan to change recyclers. The city will stick with Waste Management over Eureka Recycling, citing higher costs, resident protests and the need to sort recyclables."

"Eureka" sounds like something you'd say to a trash collector at the end of his shift, but it's Greek for "I have found it."

Of course you have found it. I put it out on the boulevard. It would make more sense to name the company after the Greek word for some mythical beast that beeped when it backed up.

Anyway, the news about Plymouth's recycling decision came as a great shock to me, because I read the story at 12:12 a.m. and remembered that I hadn't put out the recyclables. If you've ever taken out the cans and bottles late at night, you know how gingerly you approach the procedure; you feel like you're kicking a sack of cymbals and gongs through a hospital ward.

It was no small job, either. We'd had a huge party the previous week, and the quantity of cans and bottles was enormous; the only thing the scene needed was John Belushi face down on the grass. Like many, I believe that my garbagemen judge me, and I always feel abashed when there's too much stuff.

I expect the recycle guys will knock on the door with Dr. Phil and stage an intervention. Everything okay at home, sir? On the other hand, you never worry if you put out too many newspapers. Sir, I couldn't help notice that you're reading a lot. Do you read to relax? Do you read alone? Do you find yourself uncomfortable in social settings where no one is a reader?

Proof: if you leave the garbage bin by your house instead of dragging it to the curb, do they get it? Experience says no. Some sanitation engineers evidently conclude you have no garbage this week.

That doesn't explain the cloud of flies or the team of raccoons attempting to open the lid with some sort of improvised fulcrum-and-lever system, but it's not their place to ask such questions.

Perhaps the Hadron Collider formed a black hole that consumed all your garbage; it's certainly as plausible as, say, forgetting to put out the bins. Well, it's a mystery, but there's no sense walking 7 feet to answer it.

What are you looking at?

Perhaps we think they're judging our garbage because we spy on our neighbors' leavings. I always note what's at the neighbor's boulevard heap when walking the pooch. Sometimes you find a sad shabby sofa disinterred from the basement, sitting on the grass with the forlorn but hopeful expression of a dog dumped off on a rural road. Sometimes it's a Major Appliance; they always seem to be in denial about what's happening.

I think I know why some contributions are so . . . scant. Everyone in Minneapolis gets the same credit for recycling: seven bucks. The people who put out one plastic bottle and a copy of USA Today get the same credit as folks whose annual can-contributions could be smelted into an aluminum bat the size of the Washington Monument.

Well, if this stuff is as lucrative as they say, perhaps the citizens should be cut in on the action, and get a credit proportional to our contributions. We'd feel better if we knew were really getting paid to drag the stuff to the curb at 12:30 a.m.

Incidentally, when I told my wife I'd take out the recycling, she noted that recycling wasn't until Friday. I was a day early. Also, it was supposed to rain. So I dragged everything back. But I'm a reasonable man. I did that one for free.