Tales from the ‘Boro

I put my garbage out this morning for pick up. When I came home, the garbage, instead of being emptied, had doubled. Nice of the garbage collectors to give me free garbage, huh?

I live in a condominium complex, and I’ve actually watched the garbage collectors in action a few times: they pull all of the containers into the middle of the parking lot (making it a REAL challenge to get in or out if one is so inclined!).  Then they open them all, and “consolidate” the contents, presumably so they have fewer containers to “tip” when the truck arrives behind them.

Then they return the containers to the curb—but I don’t always get the SAME container.  Before they landed on this method, I used to wash out my container occasionally (okay, maybe only once a year, but still….).  Now, however, they return the containers to—well, different places each week, so I never know which container is whose.  I am NOT going to wash out all of the containers, so I give up…

At any rate, I guess they just forgot to “tip” the canister this week before returning it.  It had my garbage on the bottom, and someone else’s on top.

So I called them and a very nice lady told me they would send a truck right out and take care of it.  No problem.  And they DID quickly come out.

But when I went to the kitchen and turned on the tap, the water BURST out of the faucet, shaking the entire sink, with a ycchy brown color.  I checked all of the faucets, toilet tanks, etc., and they all did the same.  It finally cleared after I let the water run a bit, but since I am obviously having another “senior moment” here, I’m wondering which of the following scenarios is true here:

1. The water/sanitation people are mad at me for complaining about the garbage, so they did something to my water.  (This is the one my paranoid mother would believe.  Am I my mother’s daughter??!  Well, it DID occur to me….)
2. One of my neighbors told me that the unit next door had their water turned off for non-payment, but that they had come out and turned it back on.  She saw them in the back, she said, with the lids off a couple of the whatchmacallits where they turn water off and on, with puddles around it (trying to figure out which one?).  The BURST of water—as well as the muddy (ok, I choose to believe it’s mud and not something worse that is also brownish…) did sound like air in the lines—so possibly they “accidentally” (see #1) turned off my water, and then turned it back on, but leaving me with air in the lines?  And temporarily brown water?  (This HAS happened once or twice before in the more than ten years I’ve lived here, by the way!  Never did figure out why.)
3. There’s something terribly wrong with my condo’s plumbing and it will (eventually) cost me a large fortune to fix, since the plumbing all seems to be embedded in concrete.  OR
4. All of the above.
5. None of the above, in which case…. ???

So, I choose to believe it’s #2!  Ah, now I feel younger!  But, no, I’m still NOT GOING TO DRINK THE WATER!