Oddities of the world

Well hello again dear reader . . . it has been some time since I've posted on here. I won't offer an excuse, as I haven't really offered one in the past when I didn't write a post in millenia. Let me just jump into this one . . .

So, while the world seems all crazy and bent out of shape (i.e. North Korea and nuclear weapons, rising death toll in Iraq, hectic mid-term elections in the U.S., increasing violence world wide, etc) I thought I'd try to spread some chuckles and introspection.

Now, one might not usually combine laughter and deep, stoic thought but I'm going to try. Let me preface all of this first. We live in a rather typical neighborhood on a usually quiet street with access to two main roads. We have rarely had any trouble with the neighbors aside from a few dogs who bark at very odd and inconvenient hours and the occasional person who either wants to cut the grass or do home renovations at 7 am on a Saturday. A small apartment block is right beside us and I haven't seen or interacted much with the inhabitants. I do know they're mostly migrants, like myself, from places in Asia and the Middle East (not like myself).

What I want to write about is not so much these neighbors but hard rubbish collection. On most hard rubbish days you'll see an odd assortment of stuff. I've talked about it in a way previous post (go check the archives because I can't be bothered making a link). As of late, our migrant neighbors have taken to leaving hard rubbish collection materials at least once a week.

Some very odd stuff has made its way out onto the footpath . . . such as a pink little girl's bicycle complete with plastic white basket on the front, three orange plastic chairs (the likes of which you usually see in a school or church social hall), a framed motivational poster with the glass broken (the poster, interstingly enough was a jungle scene and had a message about perseverance) and another framed poster with the glass broken but this time it was a tourist promotional spread for the Northern Territory.

For some reason these items get left out . . . then the next day they've moved to another side of the street or further up or down the same side of the street. Does this stuff migrate? I've never stayed up all night watching. The thought of me in night-vision goggles watching to see if inanimate objects left as refuse will begin to move of their own accord is not one I want to really entertain. But, in addition to the stuff moving about it also seems to disappear then reappear. I've seen the bicycle left out on six different occasions, sometimes with the chairs and sometimes with large boxes for a refrigerator or television. The posters have never made reappearances, though. Just the bicycle and chairs.

It seems sad that these items have been discarded and neglected not only by the inhabitants of the flat next to us, but also by the hard rubbish collectors and every person who has travelled along our street. While the old saying might go "one man's trash is another man's treasure" this stuff seems to have been universally stamped "TRASH."

All right, so all of that wasn't too funny and didn't likely spark any thoughts . . . oh well, yet another promise unfulfilled.

So, anyone want a pink bike or some orange chairs?