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Back in Canada we had made friends with the garbage guys, offering them sodas on the road, tips at Christmas, help in loading up the truck ... I swear by the time we left we could have put a dead body out on the curb and they would have thrown it on the truck without batting an eye. Canadians, as a rule, don't like to break the law per se, but they're happy to buck the system.
Here in Charlotte, it doesn't quite work that way. First of all, any boxes that don't fit in the bin are considered bulk and require special-order pickup. Secondly, all boxes must be piled in single form, measuring a precise three-foot-by-three-foot area. Of course we weren't aware of the new policy and quite frankly were arrogant enough to figure we'd just butter up the new crew like we'd done before and all would be well.
The first time the garbage truck passed by without picking up our boxes was puzzling until Ms. Southern Hospitality clued me in to the three-by-three requirement. So I spent more than two hours that night out front, cutting, breaking, bending and restacking the high-end, heavy-duty boxes we bought from the reputable moving company back in Canada. These weren't your scraggly leftovers from the liquor store.
After much huffing and puffing, I got the job done. Just to ensure that this new pile of garbage would make its way onto the truck, however, I left a couple of sodas and a thank you note on top of the stack. They just had to take them now!
The next morning I awoke to find my stack still there. My heart sank. What the heck was I going to do? Get a measuring tape and a paper shredder? I decided I'd wait for my husband to get home and we'd discuss our options, which so far included midnight runs to the dump and paying the guy with the red truck on the next street over to come and rescue/dispose of them himself. That night over dinner, we decided we would slowly take a small pile to school with the kids each day and throw them in the cardboard waste bin there. Sneaky, sure, but problem solved.
Indeed. Seems Ms. Southern Hospitality was hooked up with some city officials and got on the horn on behalf of her clueless neighbors. She "gave them a what-for," as she put it, and explained that we were foreigners who were unaware of garbage policy in Charlotte and how she personally witnessed hours of back-breaking labor on my part trying to make it right, and what kinda welcome was that anyhow?
That very next day, the pile disappeared. No word, no note (no sodas either). I saw Ms. Southern Hospitality out front that next evening, and she told me the mayor sent her an e-mail, apologizing to us and offering a personal welcome to the Queen City. Talk about neighborly love!
And yet a few days later, our landlord showed up with a citation from another disgruntled neighbor who had taken a picture of our boxes and sent them to the city, along with a nuisance complaint. We of course explained how the matter had already been taken up with the city and how the mayor had sent us a personal welcome too. Are all neighborhoods this caring? At least I had one neighbor I could call my friend.
Flea Market: The Future of Americana
One of my favorite things to do is to go antiquing. In my search for bargains, soon after settling in, I stumbled upon another of Charlotte's subcultures, one I hadn't consciously sought, and it was both baffling and enlightening. When my friend from Toronto came to town, I decided we needed to go bargain-hunting, something we did on a weekly basis back home.
Now in his typically eloquent style, comedian Jeff Foxworthy once said, "Show me a 3-year-old in a diaper walking around a flea market with a baby bottle full of Coca-Cola, and I'll show you a future NASCAR fan." It rings oh so true. I know because I saw that 3-year-old at a flea market just outside of Charlotte.
Someone told me the flea market south of Pineville had really great antiques on Saturdays, so being a secondhand/thrift/consignment store junkie, I naturally decided we all had to go. My kids have been down this road before and are automatically suspect of any such invitation, which means bribes are in order. My husband, on the other hand, loves the social petri dish that is flea-market culture so he was game. My poor friend from out of town had no choice but to tag along.
