As CEO of Colin's Coffee Inc. I have many important responsibilities: managing a large labor force, meeting customer expectations, keeping stockholders & the board members satisfied and most importantly* - taking out the trash. 

Here at the Golden Bear Center, I am not only responsible for the trash inside the coffee shop, but also the three outside containers as well.  I won't bore you with the details but, in a nutshell, I personally take out and pay for the trash from Colin's Coffee, McDonald's and most of the neighborhood adjacent to the shopping center.

See, here in U.A. we have a program where recycling is free, but you pay for any trash to be picked up. It is a rather ingenious system as it encourages good behavior and punishes lazy, wasteful bastards. 

However, the lazy, wasteful bastards from the neighborhood and McDonald's across the parking lot have stumbled onto an ingenious plan of their own - just dump your trash outside Colin's Coffee and he can deal with it. 

And deal with it I do, on a semi-daily basis. So the other day - as I was struggling to remove a 50 gallon trash bag stuffed with Big Mac containers, beer bottles, dirty socks and the like - I noticed a newish Ann Taylor shoebox jammed in the pile. Odd. I've seen many things in the trash but something about this particular item stirred my curiosity. So I turned my nose to the side and slowly opened the box, hoping that curiosity hadn't also killed the family cat, leaving me to stare upon poor deceased Professor Paws. 

My worst fears were unrealized, as the mysterious new shoebox contained exactly what one would expect, a new pair of expensive high-heeled shoes. Perhaps a gift from a tawdry affair run amok that needed to be disposed of quickly? A clue to a crime? Or more likely, just some person too cheap to buy a trash sticker but rich enough to throw away new shoes. Nice.

Colin Gawel wrote this at Colin's Coffee. He also plays in the band Watershed. please check out his other scribblings on Pencilstorm by visiting the archive page.

*Actually, cleaning the women's restroom is the most important responsibility of the Colin's Coffee CEO.