Garbage Man Shuffle

With gas prices at an all time high, and everyone is trying to cut back I was surprised to see what I saw yesterday morning.

I was putting my pants on and heard the garbage truck hissing and squealing and barreling towards my house. I was running late and I'm usually gone before they come. I glanced out and noticed that we forgot to put the trash on the curb the night before. Missing a week of trash pick up sucks as most of you probably know, so I ran down barefoot to put the trash out. I get back inside, with this sense of relief from just averting disaster and start putting my socks on. The closer the noise got it turned into pride. I looked out to affirm the fruits of my dashing save and saw the hulking blue and white mass right outside the window... and keep on going. What the hell? Why didnt it stop? Was it some sort of sick reciprocation for me not getting my trash out early enough? Did I not put the trash receptacles the proper distance from the curb? was the blue one too close to the brown one? Did I mess up? Why didnt he stop?!

Then,as I'm pondering this while finishing getting dressed I hear it again...the trash man, he's coming back! He'd realized that he skipped us by accident! So I look out again and zoom.. thundering blue and white mass just keeps on going. If not to pick up my trash, which he's drived passed twice now, where was he going? Why didnt he stop again?

Now It's about 5 minutes later and I'm pouring my coffee and grabbing my bag and ready to go and what do I hear? ...Yes- Mr.Not-picking-up-our-trash man... Again. By now I've seen and heard stink face trash head drive passed, forward and beep in reverse passed my blue and brown waste and recycling. I ended up leaving but I was baffled. Did I fuck up...would they still be there hot, full and stinking when I got home?

Fast forward to 5:00. I'm pulling onto my street and I see them sitting there still. Oh no! I think to myself "that bastard trash man didnt empty our trash to spite me". I park, and go check the trash bins. They were empty. What a relief. But if I didnt screw up, if I didnt put them out too late, or not position them correctly for the automated robot arm that does all the work now, what the hell was the garbage truck doing driving around my block and passed my house forward and backwards all morning?

What kind of screwed up route does he have? Is the driver just an idiot and cant plan out a route that doesnt require back tracking and retracing the same path? Just seems like an awful waste of fuel and man hours to be doing that. Not to mention noisy. Diesel engines, reverse beebs and hydraulic lifts is not something the average person wants to hear for 20 minutes at 6:30 in the morning.

Does anyone else have a retarded garbage situation like me?