Flying Garbage and Wind Tunnels

I love my Bronx neighborhood. It is only a few stops on the IRT No. 1 train into Manhattan. A ride on one of the express busses will bring you right up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The neighborhood itself is colorful, lively and friendly. The Dominican guy who sells flavored ices on the street during the summer calls me “Mami,” as do some of the ladies in my church choir. People on the street smile at me. We have a nice shopping area, including a brand new BJ’s and a shopping mall that includes, among other things, our very own Starbucks, an Aldi, a Party City and a Vitamin Shoppe.

There are fascinating things about my neighborhood. For example, our garbage can fly. If you don’t believe me, here is the proof, right out of my own iPhone:

The Evidence!
The Evidence!

I confess that I have never seen a plastic bag take off from wherever it was, fly up and get caught in a tree. I suspect they do this at night, or when nobody is looking. There must be many, many more that don’t get stuck on tree branches. I’m sure that it is a plot. Our garbage is training itself to take over the neighborhood, as soon as it perfects a better navigation system. Plastic bags, food containers, pizza boxes, paper coffee cups – you name it, they’re all in on it. Any garbage that isn’t shoved down an apartment building chute into a compactor is being recruited for the rubbish army.

Of course, since they do not have wings, plastic bags and other forms of disposable detritus need a good tailwind to get themselves airborne and propelled forward. Our neighborhood is perfect for this. We have a lot of hills and multi-story buildings. Having nowhere else to go, any wind that comes up has to funnel itself between the buildings and over the hills and find any empty open space that is available. This turns some of our street corners into wind tunnels, and any garbage lucky enough to be in the way gets an automatic boost into the Bronx air and freedom.

In the meantime, we can only wait and watch – and take pictures.

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4 thoughts on “Flying Garbage and Wind Tunnels”

  1. Those plastic bags really are sinister…I had one attach itself to my cat and, when the cat freaked out and started running, the bag inflated like a parasail–which freaked the cat out even more. The torment ended when I caught the cat and disentangled him from the bag (which I promptly destroyed). I think you’re right–it IS a plot.

  2. New evidence of just how much we have to fear from military waste.

    (I really enjoyed this, Kathy.)

    1. Hehe! I had fun writing it, and taking that picture. Sometimes all you have to do is let your imagination take some strange alleyways!

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