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CHAPTER EIGHT
A NEW KIND OF GARBAGEMAN
We drove away from the Holiday Inn and to get back onto the highway, we had to drive past the Tweeter Center. I looked for a sign of the previous night's concert. Specifically, I was looking for trash. Any trash at all -- cups, bottles, papers, cigarettes, a diaper, a condom, a gum wrapper, something. There wasn't any. All the previous night's trash had mysteriously vanished. How could that be?
We merged onto I-95. I started to think about driving on the autostrada a few miles from Naples. You hear about the trash in Italy. You specifically hear about the trash in Naples. A while back, The New York Times did a whole article about the trash problem, how there's no where to put it. But in fairness, that's not even the issue, the municipalities don't even bother picking the trash up. If you've never been to Naples, you really can't imagine the enormity of this problem. There is literally trash everywhere. It's thrown onto the highways, blocking entire streets and entrances to apartment buildings, driveways, shops and homes.
If you live in New York City, you probably think, "Well, we have garbage like that on trash pick-up days." Trust me, New Yorkers, those are anthills; Naples has mountains. Actually, I think if the city of Naples ever collected all the trash, the end result would be taller than Mount Vesuvius. As we drive and I'm thinking about garbage, I remember Nick's new "hobby," specifically, climbing into dumpsters. I wonder though if he saw the really disgusting trash in Naples would he be as keen on pulling stuff out of the dumpster and eating it? I find this particularly amusing because when Nick was three years old and we would go out to eat, he was already ordering off the adult menu. Other kids around him were eating grilled cheese and soggy fries; he was waiting for a piece of grilled swordfish.
Apparently, the biggest haul in New York City is at NYU. The kids leave their dorms around the end of May and throw EVERYTHING out.
"Mom, I have enough Pantene to open a hair salon," he says. "Plus, any kind of laundry detergent and dryer sheets you want."
I remind him he breaks out in a rash when I use dryer sheets.
"Plus," he continues, "I got (sic) tons of computer paper, ink, art supplies, toaster ovens (still in the original boxes), and for some reason socks."
"Do you need an extra comforter?" he asks me.
I'm tempted to ask him whether the comforter is floral or plaid but I'm trying not to encourage him. Apparently, the list of stuff that kids take to expensive private schools is endless. Is it that the rich kids are too lazy to take any of this stuff home or are they so rich they just buy more of what they've left behind?
It's the stuff he pulls out of the trash though that he takes home to eat that skeeves me. I know that trying to get as much "free" stuff as possible these days is a big thing among twenty-year-olds but still. He gets "fresh" bagels that bakeries don't sell and dumpster at the end of the night. He's told me on more than one occasion that the bags of bagels he "rescues" have still been "hot." I try to tell him they're probably "hot" because they're decomposing. He also frequents some very well known food stores in downtown Manhattan "dumpstering" still cold yogurt; fresh pasta (thrown out because it supposedly "expired" one day prior); those ready made salads in the bag (again because of an expiration date); chocolate bars, cereal, tea, rice, and coffee beans.
Through high school Nick worked at a convenience store and told me they routinely threw stuff out not because it had expired but because they needed to make room on the shelves for new merchandise coming in. Welcome to America!
I try to talk to him about catching something, like hepatitis. He insists on giving me a bag of coffee beans. I take it and make coffee in the morning. I live to write about it.
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