There are different variations of this game, depending on the specifics of each dumping scenario. But the basic version has the passenger starting from inside the truck while the driver pushes the button that starts lowering the box from its fully inclined position. The passenger then gets out and attempts to shut and latch the rear doors of the box and get back into the truck and shut the door before the box gets all the way down to its level position. (The squealing sound that accompanies the box’s reaching its level position makes this easy to judge.) There are safety issues with this game, and we do not recommend it for new haulers.
Glove Golf is usually played in a parking lot or driveway while waiting for a customer to arrive when there’s not enough time for something productive to be done. Each crew member stands and throws his glove into the air, above a certain agreed-upon height. Wherever it lands, he must count the number of normal steps it takes to get there and add that number to his score. Take turns and the one who has the lowest score when you stop wins.
While the passenger in the truck closes his eyes, the driver lets his foot off the brake ever so slightly – so that the truck may barely idle or may just rumble a bit and seem to move – and the passenger is then asked, “Have we moved?” This is repeated until it gets boring – usually pretty quickly. Good for new trainees though. (This game works on the honor system; the passenger has to actually close his eyes and the driver has to tell the truth.)
Cosmology of Waste Part III: GIVE AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE
There is a sort of karma at work when it comes to finding treasures on the job. If you are too eager in expecting to find something good, you almost surely will not. The Wastemakers will see to it that your jinx is enforced. But if you give much to the Wastestream and are not too covetous with the things you pluck from it, you will be rewarded with treasures aplenty. Furthermore, if you give something away to a fellow Hauler, that Hauler – as a fellow devotee of the Wastemakers – will surely give back to you when given the chance. Thusly does the Wastestream keep its delicate balance.
When there is a dispute, and two or more Haulers want to keep the same thing, what we usually do is search for what we officially and unimaginatively call a “compelling reason”. Almost always there will be some detail about one person’s situation that makes it make more sense for them to have whatever it is they’re fighting over. And if open, honest discussion fails to tease out any compelling reason, our officially sanctioned final dispute settler is always Rochambeau, better known here in Anytown as Rock-Paper-Scissors. And always in its pure form: best two out of three lightning rounds.
Part II in the ‘Cosmology of Waste’ series: THEME OF THE DAY
(Part I was Wastemakers in the Sky.)
Whenever we’re out hauling, there is always a Theme to be discovered. We discover it by noticing something at least three times during the course of the day. The same things or things that relate to each other in some way that requires figuring out.
Oftentimes there will be two different things that have each happened twice and could happen again to become the official Theme. In such cases we declare “Competing Themes” and keep our minds open for a more evidence one way or the other.
I wish I could give examples of some of the themes we’ve had in the past, but it is the nature of themes that they’re hard to remember. That’s part of the reason we started this blog. Some themes are simple and somewhat pedestrian; others remarkably complex and unpredictable.
If you try too hard to figure out a Theme, you will inevitably fail. Invented themes will always seem labored and artificial. True themes cannot be invented, only discovered - revealed by the Wastemakers. And true revelation affords a definite sense of favor with the Makers, of being specially chosen to play a part in – and witness the wisdom of - their mysterious designs.
It’s winter here in Anytown. Over the last few weeks, The Edge, without really trying, has been wowing me during walks up clients’ driveways with his incredible ice-sliding ability. No doubt he is just trying to amuse himself during the duller of those cold trudges. But the other day when we did a job at a house on a hill with a 150-ft long driveway, my challenge to the Edge was irresistable:
The Haulympics is a hypothetical game that we’ve never really played. There are many different tasks we have to perform and skills to acquire, tricks, flourishes, etc. It’s fun sometimes to daydream about the staging of a huge exhibition for all these things, where haulers from all corner of the Earth got together in a show of hauling ability…the Haulympics. The Edge would take gold in the bag-tossing competition. I myself would be pretty competitive in the freestyle dolly-maneuvering event, I like to think. Bosun (who has yet to write a post here) would surely medal in Smooth-talking the Client, and Flores would leave his name in the Truck Racing recordbooks. It would be grand.
[This is the first in a series of posts I plan to write about the games we play to keep things interesting and help those long days go by…]
The name of this one says it all. I’ve been playing this game against my coworkers for longer than any of them probably know, but the other day it was made official when The Edge and I went head to head right there in a client’s living room as she stood watching (and wondering who would win, maybe silently judging our unprofessionalism, or maybe being won over by the cuteness of it).
Anyway it’s quite simple. When a couch needs to be turned on its back and the feet screwed off (most cheap couches have unscrewable feet) this game pretty much begs to be played, since the hauler who was holding either end of the couch is now tasked with unscrewing the two feet on his side, directly across from his partner who’s doing the same. There being a top foot and then a clear midpoint to the race as each participant makes his way to the bottom foot – the natural progression, top-to-bottom – makes this game very exciting.
In case you’re wondering, The Edge and I tied that day on a technicality: he finished screwing the feet off first, but the hole where his bottom foot went still had the screw jutting out of it.
We are waste haulers. We see some interesting things and get into some interesting situations. Some of them gross, some funny, all true. And most of it secret - until now. This is where we share the things we don't want to forget.
