History always repeats itself

When I moved into my old Long Island township 30 years ago garbage collection was privately run. You had to contract with a private company to pick up your garbage.   The township did not take care of it.  I had not moved into my new house 2 days when I got a pounding on my front door from some Italian goombah trying to shake me down for $100 to get my garbage collected.  Either that or I would have to drive 12 miles every week to personally dispose of my trash in the town;s waste management dump.  I refused to pay this guy unless he provided me with a contract and an invoice.  That came in the mail 2 days later.  And then, after signing their contract, they started picking up my trash.  No more than 3 or 4 months later there was a shootout in the street about 6 blocks north of my house.  Three trash collectors were gunned down in the early morning while picking up trash.  One of them was killed. 1987. It was the top story in Newsday the next morning.  Immediately after that the town contracted with all these private companies and decided to manage garbage collection themselves. To this day the township contracts out garbage collection - but residents pay for the services in their annual taxes. A good decision. 

So I have been here in Florida 2 weeks.  I have figured out that they pick up my trash every Monday morning and Thursday morning.  But very, very early.  If I don’t get my trash can out to the curb before 7 a.m. I will miss out.  I have also noticed that they skipped my neighbor’s house to get to my house.  What is all that about??  But I hadn’t figured out the process for recycling glass/metal/plastic and bulk item collection.  On Friday I attended the new homeowners orientation for the my gated community.  I asked about trash collection as I had so many questions about it.  But, oh no. They could not tell me because each neighborhood within the community has its own trash collection rules.  For my neighborhood I was told I needed to call my community representative and ask her.

So I called my community representative.  Her first question was, “Do you have a blue garbage can or a black garbage can?”  I have a blue one.  “Then your garbage company is Company A.”  I have to call them myself and contract with them to have them pick up my trash.  They charge $33 every 3 months.  Reasonable.  They pick up garbage twice a week, recyclables once a month, and only one bulk item with each trash collection.  Sounds good so far.  But if I want to contract with the other company (Company B) they charge a little bit more, but will pick up recyclables weekly.  And they will charge me $80 to purchase one of their black garbage cans.  Once a month recyclable collection sounds okay with me.  I’ll stick with Company A and will call them on Monday.  But now I am waiting for the early morning massacre.  The local shootout.  It is inevitable.  History always repeats itself.  Know what I mean????