*From our sister paper, Henry County Enterprise – http://www.henrycountyenterprise.com.*
By BEN R. WILLIAMS
Dear guy who keeps putting his trash in my trash cans,
No, wait. That’s too cumbersome. Let me try again.
Listen up, scum,
For about two years now, I’ve been using Rural Services of Claudville, Va. for trash pickup. Rural Services is a wonderful company offering an affordable service, and I heartily recommend them to anyone within their service range. I’m not getting paid to say this, they just happen to be one of a handful of companies and products that I am willing to personally endorse, alongside Comet Pinball LED lighting and the Hakko FR-301 Portable Desoldering Gun.
Rural Services has just two rules: all trash must be in bags, and they only pick up eight bags per week (at least with the package I have). These rules seem fair to me. We need to have rules. Otherwise, society would descend into chaos.
I have two trash cans at the end of my long gravel driveway, and I use them not only for my trash, but also my grandma’s trash. Between the two of us, keeping it under eight bags per week is no problem.
But you know when it does become a problem, you scum? When some jerk starts filling my trash cans with his trash.
How do I know it’s someone else’s trash, you might ask? Well, you sleaze, for starters, I don’t use those tall white kitchen trash bags. I also don’t have a cat, so I have no need to throw away trash bags filled with used kitty litter and toxoplasma gondii. Additionally, I don’t just throw loose trash into the cans like some kind of animal because I understand the simple rules laid out by Rural Services.
Now, if this had only happened once, I would just let it go. But it keeps happening, you human septic tank, and now I’m finding that I’m having to haul my trash to the dump because you have filled up my cans before the Monday morning pickup.
I had the perfect idea on how to remedy this situation. Unfortunately, the use of booby traps has been outlawed in the U.S. since 1825. Thanks for nothing, President John Quincy Adams.
You might be saying to yourself, “Jeez Ben, calm down. It’s just trash.”
But this isn’t just about you putting your trash in my trash cans, thereby stealing a paid service from me. No, this is about the gradual moral degradation of American society. This is about a country where politicians no longer follow agreed upon rules if it limits their ability to line their pockets. This is about voters casting ballots not to help their fellow man, but to hurt him. This is about every man for himself. This is about “screw you, got mine.” This is about the entropy afflicting the very ideals of the American Experiment, revealing a rotten, selfish core.
I can’t fix our fractured nation, garbage thief. But I can fix your wagon. You have made the terrible mistake of crossing the pettiest man in southwest Virginia.
Already I have begun to assemble my surveillance network. I have eyes everywhere, neighbors ready to receive a cash reward in exchange for a plate number, make, and model. They know I’m square in my dealings, that I always pay my debts.
I will bring you to justice, you scum, but not for my own benefit.
I’m doing this for America.
