My summer job as a city worker entails the enthralling job of garbage pick up. And let me tell you, there is nothing more fun than riding on the back of a metal garbage truck on an 85-degree day while it's filled with 10 tons of garbage.

Now please, I warn you, read with sarcasm. These thoughts have been floating through my head all summer, and some of them will probably make you think twice about your garbage. I write these thoughts as a tribute to my last week on garbage duty.

1. How do you have THIS MUCH garbage?

You would be surprised by how much garbage some people can put out week after week. How on earth do you go through this much?

2. 64-gallon garbage can? No problem, I'm super woman.

If it is heavy for you, it is heavy for me. Our city has a rule that if you have a garbage can that is deemed too big (generally around 64 gallons) you must have everything bagged. Let me know when you lift up a 64-gallon Toter garbage can and dump out the little plastic bags you stuck at the bottom of it. I'll be waiting to hear from your chiropractor about it, too.

3. Yes, thank you for keeping your can out in the rain all week so that it is ten times heavier because it is half full of water.

You go to lift a can and you just about through out your back as you hear everything slosh inside. Time to dump it on its side and watch the water gush out. Almost as cool as going to the Wisconsin Dells! Not.

4. Oh wow, the raccoons got your garbage? Maybe get a garbage can then?

Week after week people will have garbage spewed across their lawn because animals got into it and ripped the flimsy plastic bag apart. GET A CAN!

5. Maggots *gags*.

Enough said there. Clean your cans out people!

6. We haven't picked up those very large glass doors for the past month for a reason, THEY DON'T FIT IN THE TRUCK!

You will be surprised what people think can fit in the back o the garbage truck. Would you like the cycle to break all that glass and have your car run over it? Didn't think so. Get the message, we aren't picking it up. It will continue to sit in your lawn till you do something about it.

7. Ah yes, of course we will take all of your recyclable glass and cardboard; the environment can handle it.

The number amount of people who don't recycle are overwhelming. I get you had a party and that bag of cans is probably easier to throw away than to separate into the recycling, but please for the environment's sake, recycle them.

8. Cat litter, dirt, or human body?

The ever eluding, fun game of what is making this can so freaking heavy? Be the nice people who set it on the side. Except for your bodies, please dispose of those elsewhere.

9. Thank you for hiding that disgusting piece of trash in the can so it will strategically fall out and get all over me. I really appreciate it.

That amount of random disgusting things that have fallen on me because people don't know how to properly tie up a garbage bag is overwhelming. Don't be that person.

10. Oh look, I could probably turn this into a craft, I'm keeping this.

True stuff. I have done this. As I have been told, "The streets will provide."

11. HAHAHAHA, as if.

Some of the things you see on garbage this is really the only response you can have. Some people, I tell ya.

12. Oh wow, must have been a mattress sale.

You are on your third mattress and you aren't even 2 hours into pick up. Yes, we do put the mattresses in the back in crush them. Magical isn't it.

13. Couch, couch, couch, futon, sofa sleeper, 1,2,3 LIFT.

Sofa sleepers should be illegal. Again, if it was heavy for you, it is heavy for us. A few of those in a day will really throw the back into a great whack.

14. I'm judging you by your garbage.

I see that you have three different pizza boxes from three different places. You like pizza, huh? You don't like cooking, huh?

So, when you put out your garbage next time, think of us.

Love,

The Garbage People