I'm not with the program

I'm not a conformist..but you probably already know that about me.

I have to throw a wrench into the works whenever I can just so I can maintain some sanity.

If everyone else is doing one thing I do another. As a kid this made me immensely unpopular.

I was the person wouldn't bend to peer pressure and wouldn't turn a blind eye to obvious monkeyshines.

It was the only way I felt I could maintain my individuality in a world full of followers.

When things are shoved at me I shove back.

For example, for the last 15 years or so there has been a recycling program here where you washed out your cans and bottles, removed the labels and put them in a special tote to be picked up on Tuesdays.

First of all, I don't have time to wash and peel my garbage. Second of all I don't believe in recycling if it doesn't pay. So I did some research...turns out no one wanted the raw materials collected by my city so it was all being quietly dumped into the local landfill. The channel 4 troubleshooters had done an expose on the whole stinking scam.

What a waste of money and resources! They spend all this time gathering and sorting garbage just to dump it in a landfill...

Ha! I knew it. Recycling is a scam..it is currently cheaper for manufacturers to make a new plastic bottle or tin can than it was to use recycled materials.

So I took my recycle bin and used it to store some Christmas decorations.

Every week all of my neighbors would dutifully put their carefully washed garbage in their little green bin and set it on the curb. One guy across the street asked me..."don't you recycle?"

I said yes I take scrap aluminum to the metals dealer and get $175 a truck load.

"No I mean your plastics" ...I responded with.. Why should I? I'm not getting paid to sort and bathe my trash and the city just dumps it in the landfill anyway..do your reasearch....

The guy huffed and went back inside.

Screw them!

Now we just started a new system..the city provides us with 2 large plastic dumpsters; one for bags of trash and one for recyclables and a truck comes by twice per week and picks them up with a scissor lift and dumps the bins automatically.

I was pissed off at first..then I realized my golden opprotunity.

I filled the recycle dumpster with all my old broken computers, monitors, old tires, tree limbs, leaves, snot rags, dog shit and other crap I couldn't or wouldn't put in my trash can.

I sat outside and chuckled as the truck came by and dumped all that shit onto their pretty clean washed cans and bottles that the drones so dutifully gathered.

Life is good.