princetonscoop's posterous

By Bridgette Fossel

 It was 8 a.m. on a Wednesday morning and unlike the recent mornings of my summer at home from college, I found myself out of bed and outside with the sun. Accompanied by a large Box of Joe and Munchkins purchased from Dunkin’ Donuts, two tall blue garbage bins, the camera gal; Alex Zuckerman, the cheerleader; Melissa Klepacki, and a homemade sign gripped my hands on the side of the road anxiously waiting for the garbagemen to arrive.

As time passed, several cars drove by on the busy road with a 40 mph speed limit, heads from inside the vehicles were arching their necks and staring at my sign that read “Have you thanked your Garbagemen today?!”. Some people beeped in approval with one hand while holding their own morning coffee in the opposite one. Others displayed a smile on their faces, waved or gave me a ‘thumbs-up’. One man in a landscaping company pick-up truck even took both hands off the wheel and dangerously gave me two thumbs-up and a beep with a smile and cheer.

There were a lot of cars however, whose eyes my sign did not catch, and then there were those who just stared. Maybe those cars were accelerating too fast to read, comprehend and react to the sign. Or perhaps they did read it, thought about the words on my sign as I was a distant image in the rear view mirror, and wondered when, if ever, was the last time they thanked or even acknowledged their garbagemen. That is the goal of this project; to make people think and to inspire them to duplicate our act or do their own.

Over an hour had gone by and I was getting antsy, hot and discouraged. My fingers were aching from holding the sign and collecting ink from the black words on the poster board. I tried to stay positive and reassure myself that the garbage truck would be behind the next car that passed. But it wasn’t. And it wasn’t behind the next car either.

Two and a half hours and about 140 cars had passed me on the side of the road with my sign, when suddenly the roar of a truck from the neighboring street travelled into our ears. And sure enough, a big blue garbage truck was approaching us. A rush of adrenaline took over me and the discouraging feelings I had had moments earlier were immediately forgotten.

There he was, the man of the morning, waving with a smile from ear-to-ear as he pulled up next to me collecting the trash from the cans through his machine first, like a good garbageman would, and then climbing out of his truck to greet me.  A short, muscular Caucasian man with a pierced ear and his wide smile still intact came over to me. I told him that he helps our community immensely and that we just wanted to thank him for doing his under-appreciated job by giving him the coffee and donuts to enjoy for the remainder of his morning rounds.

He was at a loss for words and said something that made the long morning of waiting in the sun for almost three hours with my sign completely worth it; “In my 23 years of doing this, nobody has ever done something like this for me. Thank you so much!”

We waved good-bye to him as he drove away and knowing that that small deed made his day, made my day as well.

So if you have yet to thank your garbageman today, hopefully this post has inspired you to do so or thank somebody else who doesn’t hear it as often as they should.

Video: Alex Zuckerman