Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The Rolling Underbelly

Last night on the drive from my house to Blockbuster Video I saw a homeless guy with 2 dogs. That was the second time I witnessed that unhappy sight in a few days. There was some other homeless guy camped out by the wash who also had 2 dogs. And they are both different from the homeless guy with 2 dogs you see in Sierra Madre and East Pasadena.
I also saw 2 trucks (both personal vehicles) loaded down with cardboard headed to the recycling center by Ralph's /Ichima. This was at like 9:30 at night so they weren't there to drop off their recycling, they were there to steal what they could out of the recycling center. How they planned to split up the loot I can only imagine. When I got home I brought out the trash barrels, it only took 15 minutes before someone was rooting around in my own recycle bin. (A veritable treasure trove after having Alex for a week, but don't get used to it). At work, we can't put on enough security to keep the collectors out of our recycling cans. I recently had to reprimand an employee on the dangers of crawling into a trash compactor, on duty or otherwise There is a seedy underside to the Crown City, The Rose City, and the poor economic conditions are only making worse. I'm wary of a city where the middle class is becoming scarce and times are only getting more desperate.

2 comments:

Jeff said...

As China began to grow at massive exponential rates cities around the world began to experience theft of manhole covers that were being sold as scrap metal and send by the boatload to China. In 2005 Chicago had a week where over 100 went missing.

appojax said...

I contributed to that number in Chi-Town in oh-five..but I didn't sell the cover for scrap. I was just drunk