Trash Migration

Trash Migration - a reading (on YouTube)

Here at the house, our trash gets collected twice each week, Monday and Thursday. While we're lucky if we put out one barrel once a week, our neighbors are much more prolific in their trash generation. Every Sunday and Wednesday, we are privileged to witness the rare trash migration that occurs next door.

It starts before dawn with us waking to find one trash can perched like a pillar at the edge of the curb. It stands as a lone sentry for most of the morning, a kind of bellwether guardian to ensure the remainder of the herd will be safe as they approach. One by one over the course of the next several hours, individual cans cluster around their leader until, by evening, three to four well-stuffed barrels have colonized the banks of the asphalt stream. Only then does the young, less contained trash of the herd, the miscellaneous boxes, bags and household detritus, feel safe enough to emerge from hiding and cling to the handles of their elders. Once weekly, they are joined by their low, squat cousins, the recycling bins, always arriving in pairs, usually after a heavy feeding. Some days, they bring snacks of bundled yard waste to see them through the long, dark night until collection the next morning.

Each week, they remain quite cautious. In my twenty years of observation, I've never seen the herd rush the curb en masse. Perhaps the subtropical heat holds them to a slower pace. Perhaps it's their natural shyness or an instinct for self-preservation against the packs of salvage scavengers and rogue recyclers that circle the neighborhood. Perhaps only one or two ever make the migration at all and breed at the curb in some unwitnessed mating ritual or asexual budding. I'm not sure we'll know unless we set up a scent-masked blind with a motion-sensing, night-vision camera to monitor their diurnal rhythms in this their natural habitat.

But we must be quick or by morning all we'll find are their empty carcasses. The grunting, grinding predator that roams the asphalt river is large and its appetite nearly insatiable.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Squirrel Conclave

Squirrel Conclave - a reading (on YouTube)

Yesterday, as I was looking out the office window, I saw the neighbor's cat go tearing across the front yard, chasing after something out of sight. One of our cats, on the bookshelf behind me, was suddenly very interested. So I went to another window, and sure enough, there was the neighbor's cat with a squirrel in his mouth. I headed for the door, hoping for a rescue, but by the time I got outside, the cat and squirrel were nowhere in sight. I looked around, but saw no sign. Once I got back to the driveway, I heard a squirrel in one of the front oaks screeching a warning like they do, only somewhat off-key. To me, it sounded mournful.

This morning, I look out the office window and see three small squirrels playing in the grass. Tentatively, they chase one another up one of the front oaks. Two more join them. The five of them run down and across the street. Another two cross from the neighbor's yard. Ok, that's seven squirrels. They chase each other up the neighbor's palm tree, and back down, still friendly. Then they sit in a three-by-three foot area, most up on their hind legs as if posing for a picture. Another crosses the street to join them, and, finally, two more. That makes a total of ten squirrels that I can see.

Uh, oh, this doesn't look good. I've never seen this many squirrels in one small space before. Maybe there's some sort of conclave going on. Maybe it's a mass migration. Maybe they think the neighborhood has gone downhill. Or maybe they're plotting revenge against the neighbor's cat. I'd better keep our own off the porch today, just in case.

Now, without ever seeing any squirrels cross back, I've got a normal compliment in the front yard again, eating the hibiscus flowers, drinking from the birdbath, romping in the oaks. All the ones across the street have vanished. One or two more cross, but by then the congregation has dispersed. The conclave is over. Maybe they've selected a new leader. Or elected a new pope. I don't see any white smoke. Just gray tails swishing in the breeze.

Ok, maybe I should go lie down. It's been a rather strange morning.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III

Der Panzer Toaster

Der Panzer Toaster - a reading (on YouTube)

On Saturday we went shopping for a new microwave to replace our 21 year-old model which had started to emit more and more of ozone each time we turned it on. While in Bed, Bath & Beyond, I contracted a serious case of techno-lust and felt compelled to check in on an old friend in the small appliance section, Der Panzer Toaster.

I spotted this beast a few years ago. It's a toaster-oven made by Krups, a name reminiscent of the German arms manufacturer during WWII, though an entirely different company as I understand it. This is one serious device. It has solid, German construction, blocky and heavy. It has digital controls, the high-tech communications package of toaster ovens. It has an ultra-modern, matte black, baked on stealth-style enamel coating. Behind the door it has six quartz heating elements, three top, three bottom, that draw more power than the average microwave oven, a whopping 1.6 kW. It has a Teflon coated drip-pan liner. It has enough room inside to swallow a frozen pizza or a house a bevy of Cornish game hens.

If you were to put this machine on treads, it would roam the counter at night and demand the surrender of other kitchen electronics, forcing the small appliances into forming alliances to oppose it. First, it would incorporate the coffee maker into its empire, which the Braun bean grinder would likely betray. Then, the crock pot, the bread machine and the blender would dig in, forming a ceramic, glass and steel Maginot Line. But they, too, would fall when it outflanked their defenses through the forest of oregano and basil in the spice countries. The garbage disposal would resist valiantly but soon shut down, leaving the dishwasher in an untenable position.

Emboldened, Der Panzer Toaster would cross the sink unopposed. One by one, it would conquer the mini-chopper, the hand mixer, and finally the stick blender. With the digital scale and the kitchen timer under siege, only the microwave could hold out on its own for long, and only because it occupies a separate island on a separate circuit breaker. Ultimately, even it would fail unless the refrigerator revoked its neutrality and brought its technological prowess to bear quickly, first by exploiting Der Panzer Toaster's one known weakness and coating the linoleum in a frozen, arctic tundra, followed by opening a second front across the channel to the butcher-block that houses the kitchen knives. Even then, it would be a long, hard slog to liberate the appliances that had fallen under Der Panzer Toaster's shadow. And who knows what cold war might ensue should the conventional oven decide to pursue an independent strategy and occupy its own client states.

As much as I admire that kind of innovative technological initiative, that's not the behavior I'm looking for in a small kitchen appliance. So I left it on the shelf, purring like a Bengal tiger as it dreamed of stainless steel, gourmet glory in someone else's kitchen.

© 2011 Edward P. Morgan III