By Chrystal Lopez
He is an enigma. He comes and goes as he pleases. And he moves trash cans as he sees fit. I’m not sure what the beef is between him and trash cans, but he has no problem being vocally frustrated about them.
I get excited when I hear him coming down the alley. Most of his words are indecipherable. They are just loud grumbling grunts accompanied by the sound of shifting trash bins. There is no routine time of day or week when he decided to come through my block’s alleyway, but I am glad our alley is one he regularly visits. This strange man, who moves trash cans back and forth between the alley or lines them up against the fence, actually makes my day a little better.
Because he reminds me that I could be crazier and stranger than I already am.
I wonder if it’s an obsessive compulsive habit. That would be more relatable than just being flat out insane. My bouts of OCD used to be based on odd numbers. The volume on my car would always have to be on an odd number, I would skip steps when climbing stairs to make it an odd number, I’m adding another reason to this sentence to make the list of reasons an odd number.
And I can’t claim that my OCD has completely gone away. I still get satisfaction when I am rolling silverware at my serving job and I have just the right number to complete my rolled silverware pyramid. Or when I reach a destination right as the song that is playing in my car comes to an end. (One of the best moments of my life was when the 15-CD-long playlist I made for my 17 hour drive from Savannah to Chicago ended right as I pulled into the parking lot of the condo I grew up in.) But, for the most part, my OCD has gone away.
I never had the urge to yell at inanimate objects because of one of my compulsive ticks, but to each his own.
People do really strange things. But those oddities of an individual’s personality trait is what keeps me interested. Honestly, if a person is seen as “normal” to me, I don’t really give a s*** about them.
Normal is boring. I would pick hanging out with a guy that yells at trash cans over a person who defines themselves as “normal” any day.
Is “normal” a desirable characteristic to many people? I hear people talk about the measures that they take to be more “normal,” and all I can think is, “why?” I mean, yes, there are measures people should take to not let themselves become crazy to the point where they become a threat to other people’s safety. But there is no reason to tame down the quirks that make you, well, you. Just because people will give you strange looks, or because people call you weird isn’t a good reason to suppress the things that set you apart from everyone else.
For all of the strange looks you get, there will be a look of admiration from someone else. And those are the people who make every awkward or embarrassing moment worth it. As far-fetched as it may seem at times, there will always be people who get the way you think. Or find you fascinating because of it.
So, maybe, there is more than one person out there who can’t stand the placement of trash cans and have to do something about it. Either way, my hat goes off to the man taking care of those “stupid trash cans.” Crazy on, my friend, crazy on.
