Application for Waste Services! Film at 11:00!

Bad language alert. Turn back now lest thy delicate sensibilities be offended!

Nice. We just got a letter in the mails from the city (my the city) saying we have to use their trash service.

Hold on there.

We bought our house in 2003. It was in an unincorporated part of the county. When we got the house, we entered into individual private contracts with various companies to provide us with what we needed (electricity, water, etc) and asked nobody permission to do so. In Texas, you can even pick your electricity provider. But in Davesville, you get to use the company the city decides is best, when it comes to your trash. This was not an issue for us, as we were not a part of Davesville. Then in 2008, against our will and over the objections of a minority of the property owners around us, we were annexed into Davesville. We had, to date, used exactly zero city services at our house. Thanks very much citizen! You may continue to use zero city services, but we will now be charging you an additional $600+ per year in taxes for the privilege of living within the expanded boundaries of Davesville!

Thanks, asshole.

Anyways, back to the pain-in-my-ass at hand. Three years ago, my street had two flavors of trash cans on the street: bigass blue and bigass green. These were provided by two private companies that sent bigass trash trucks lumbering down the street twice a week to pick up the bigass trash cans the people would roll out to the curb. Then the city of Davesville came along and annexed us. Now once a week there are TWO BIGASS TRASH CANS at the curb in front of every house. There's a green one for trash and a blue one for recycling. The other six days of the week, there are two bigass trash cans cluttering up the front or side of every house. Well, not every house. OUR house and one across the street are the only two that still feature only the one bigass blue trash can. These are hauled to the curb as often as TWICE a week. Sometimes I even SKIP a trash day, because I get service twice a week BOOYAH!

Well, now we have this letter. It says (to paraphrase): "Our records indicate that you people have chosen to use a private company of your own choosing to collect your trash. This is unacceptable comerades! You vill use zee State-approved garbage company only!"

We now have the privilege of filling out an application for a Waste Utility Account with the City. We have the distinct honor of filing a $25 deposit with Davesville in case we (who have not missed a trash payment in going on eight years) turn out to be deadbeats. We also get to use this joyous occasion to provide Davesville officials with a "Copy of Valid Identification" along with our application for a solid waste account, to prove that we are not a bunch of godless heathen illegal aliens from France or whatnot.

So here I am venting my spleen at you (as usual) before I write up a nastygram to Davesville about what they can do with their bigass blue and green trash cans. Follows the letter I would like to send. It will be toned-down somewhat in the final draft.

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Dear faceless City of Davesville bureaucrat,

I am in receipt of an undated form letter from the City of Davesville informing me that I must desist using the company I have used for the last eight years for solid waste disposal, and begin using a company chosen by the City. This is a sack of horseshit and I'll tell you why:

Requiring me to pay my money to use the services of a company you choose is FASCISM. Google "sic semper tyrannis" to see what red-blooded freemen think of this sort of thing.

You can take your application for a waste utility account and shove it. If you to have your people send their bigass trash cans to my house and have their trucks pick up my trash, bring it. I'm not applying for shit. I live here. Send them here. I will pay them.

While you're shoving things, take your recycling bin and shove that, too. Like hell I'm going to presort my recyclables from my trash. It all goes into the same bin inside the house and it will all be going in the same bin outside the house.

If you want photo identification, you can call and set up an appointment and I'll show it to you. You're on the wrong track if you think I'm sending a copy of my drivers license to an unknown place with unknown ID security protocols to be shoved in an unlocked drawer in some office. Of course, this is a bullshit requirement anyway. I am a citizen both of Texas and of the United States and have been since birth. I have lived here for eight years and never missed paying a trash company bill. Send the bills and they will be paid.

The bill that won't be paid is the $25 deposit. See the foregoing paragraph and take my fucking word for it that I'm not going to welsh on my trash bills. I refuse to pay extra, up front, for the privilege of being forced to change my trash company. You want to change companies, fine I don't give a flying fuck but you can keep out of my wallet. Send bills, and send trash trucks. What is $25 going to get you? Nothing is what, because I'll still be here, paying trash bills, a year from now and you'll eventually refund my deposit to me if I pay it. Will I have interest coming to me? Are you going to give me $5 for the honor of holding my cash for a year? No? Then fuck off. Oh wait, you'll waive the deposit if I set up an automatic bank draft to pay the bill? How generous of you! How about you'll waive it anyway.

P.S. like hell am I giving you a work or cell phone number, and you'll have to start guessing if you want my email address. I'll be putting my trash bin out twice a week like I do currently, even though it will only be picked up once, just to piss everybody off. The recycle bin you will find beside the house with a potato plant growing in it. Please don't mess with it until the plant dies.

Here's hoping your office burns down.

Sincerely,

VFD.

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It's actually cheaper than the current service we use, but that's not the point. It's the principal of the thing.