Lindsay Ferrier: Wife, Mother, GARBAGE COLLECTOR

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be a trash man?

Probably not. But I have. I always thought it had to be one of the toughest jobs out there.  So you know that was tops on my list when we decided to do a “jobs” season of “I’ll Take That Dare!”

Yes, I spent a morning hauling trash, and it was every bit as nasty as you might imagine. But you really have to see my experience for yourself in order to get the full effect. Here it is:

Why yes. Those were maggots.

*shudder*

Maggots were the worst part of this job. Well, that and the smell. But I have to tell you that what surprised me most about this job was that I sort of liked it. There’s something honest about hauling trash, something satisfying about wheeling the bins over to the truck, dumping them into the back,  and then setting them down neatly in people’s driveways. And riding on the back of the truck? That was AWESOME.

This job also totally changed the way I look at trash. You could tell a lot about a person by the state of his trash bin. Some bins contained trash that was neatly bagged and virtually odor-free. Other bins were just disgusting, with ripped open bags (or no bags at all) filled with stinking, rotted food and who-knows-what-else. I saw a lot more that day than I bargained for, that’s for sure, and I couldn’t help but form opinions about people that were based entirely on their trash.

In other words, your trash man probably knows far more about you than you had realized!

This is not a job that’s in high demand, I’m guessing, but it’s actually not a bad one. The work’s really not that difficult and the guys are typically done by early afternoon. It’s perfect for moms with school-aged kids, if you think about it! Why are more moms not riding on the backs of trash trucks? Huh? Huh?

The funniest part of the day came when a man (who routinely forgets to put out his trash, according to my trash collecting friends) came running out after the truck had passed, shouting for us to wait. I walked back to meet him at the street and take his bin from him. When he realized that I was a woman, he stopped short, completely flustered. “I, uh, well I can get it,” he said.

“Oh no,” I assured him. “I’ll take it. It’s my job!” The cameras weren’t rolling at this point so for all he knew, I was just one of the trash collectors. I took it from him and emptied it at the truck. When I turned to take it back to his house, he was standing behind me. “I’ll, er, I can take it from here,” he said. I had a good laugh about that guy. He was probably completely befuddled!

And yes, I kept hauling trash after the cameras had stopped rolling. I really liked my boss, and he was good about simply letting me do the job, just like the other guys. I was a garbage collector, and I’d totally do it again if I had to.

Would you?