Team Willow, having spent 3 years building valuable mystique and notoriety, has finally cemented our reputation among neighbours as the "trashiest house on the block". After a lengthy process of moving out 3 former roommates, and moving in 3 new ones, we were left with a hell of a lot of refuse. Add to that two weeks of frantic cleaning, carpet removal, painting, and renovating, we had what amounted to an enormous pile of living, breathing, stinking trash.

We took it all out to the curb last week, thinking the worst was over. It was in fact yet to begin. The next morning when we woke up, not only was the trash pile still there, but on our doorknob hung a shiny plastic bag containing a letter from the city. We had received warning of keeping an unsightly premises. As it turned out, we had dragged all our trash to the front of the house on a compost week. And it couldn't very well sit outside again for another week, I mean, we aren't total skids.

So we dragged that trash back to the deep back yard again, and we waited. And during that week, we cooked meals, opened beverages, recycled paper, etc. etc. We made more trash, so that when monday night finally rolled around again, we had even more to look forward to.

By the time we got it all out to the curb, the trash-pile had taken on a life of it's own. It was now the size of a small pick-up truck, which we were able to verify, since a small red pick-up truck was conveniently parked next to the pile that night until early morning. We tried to organize the pile the best we could, because by this time we were feeling pretty fucking sorry for the poor trash-men who would have the lovely job of removing our terrible mountain the next morning. As the night wore on, and morning drew closer, we worried. What if it's too big? What if the garbage-men refuse to take the pile? If it wasn't gone by morning, what the hell could we possibly do with it? If I were a garbage-man, there's a fairly good chance that I would refuse to deal with a pile of that magnitude. That's not in my job description, man. Anyway, we crossed our fingers, and we went to bed.

The next morning, to our surprise, and absolute joy, the trash-men arrived promptly and skillfully hauled roughly 98% of our horrible pile into their giant truck to be carried off into the morning. We were thrilled! It was finally gone! Well, most of it. But considering what bastard-citizens we had been, we felt that the 5% of garbage-leftovers now gracing our lawn was more than fair. Michael recorded it all with his polaroid camera, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

I myself slept through the actual trash-collecting, but I was awakened by our doorbell sometime just before 10:00am this morning. After realizing that nobody else was answering, I pulled myself out of bed, threw on a pair of jeans, and ran for the door, while pulling on my shirt, and yelling "Just a minute!" Halfway down the stairs, the door opened, and a middle-aged, bald-headed man let himself into our house.

"Oh, sorry." He said, "I thought you said come in."
"No, I said 'just a minute'" said I. "Can I help you?"
"Is that your trash outside of this house?"
I looked outside, and saw the extreme absence of our former-trash-mountain. "What trash? It looks like they took just about everything."
"Well, there's still some on the lawn, and I was just wondering if it was going to be moved?"
"What time is it?" I asked, "Didn't the garbage-people just pick up the trash like, twenty minutes ago? You're here pretty early, I would say."
"Well," he said, "The neighbours have been talking. I mean, it reflects poorly on the street. It's a bit of an eyesore."
"No, it was and eyesore." I replied. "Now it's just our empty garbage bins, and a few leftovers. I'm sorry for the huge pile. We had some roommates move out, and there was a lot of leftovers, and a lot of garbage. We did the best we could do."
"Well, that's fine bro. No problem. Are you planning on moving that stuff out of sight any time soon?"
"Yes. Of course. You do know that it's still only ten a.m. don't you?"
"Yeah, ok man." he said. "Peace on that. As long as it doesn't stay all week."
"Why would it stay all week?"
"You're right. Thanks. Have a nice day." he said.
"You too." I said.

I moved the remainder of the mighty pile to the back of the house today at 2:30pm.

And so ends the tale. Peace on that.