Today is trash (and recycling) day in my neighborhood. Everybody puts their city-issued wheeled heavy-duty black trash (and gray recycling) bins out by the curb, facing properly outward so that when the (white) trash (or recycling) truck comes, it can simply reach out its mechanical arm, grasp the trash (or recycling) bin, pick it up and dump its contents into the truck. Done, down, on to the next.

When my brother and I were little, we would run to the front door window when we heard the orange trash truck's backing-up beep approaching up our dead-end street. We would watch as the two trash guys, driver and passenger, would get out of the truck, toss the lids off our green trash cans, and heft them upside down to dump into the open place on the side of the truck. When they'd dumped all three or four cans, one of them would push a big button -- this was my favorite part -- and a compactor panel would shove all of our trash back into the depths of the truck. Meanwhile, the trash guys would have swung back up into their places, the passenger often simply hanging off the side of the truck, as neither side had a door, and the truck would move down to our neighbors'.

We may not have Jetson robot butlers yet, but we're inching into the future bit by bit, mechanical arm by mechanical arm, for better and worse. I remember non-electronic cash registers too, but I won't go into that right now.

contents of the purple tricycle are copyright 2003 carrie lynn king unless otherwise noted.