| Bull Noir |
 |
 |
| Written by Ron Oliveri |
| Wednesday, 21 January 2009 15:55 |
|
The first time I saw an advert for SDT (the garbage company, not STD) I scoffed. Why would a waste management company want to be publicized, I wondered. Why would a member of one of New Orleans’ most questioned industries put its name out there for speculation and jeering from the general public? And what an ad…the garbage removal specialist, pressure washing the tourist pissing on a building in the quarter! I remember watching my grandmother give the trash collector in her neighborhood cookies during the holidays. The only interaction I’d had to this point with trash guys was a random garbage man cursing me for pulling my can to the road thirty seconds before the truck pulled up. (This may be a good time to mention it was NOT in fact one of SDT’s garbage trucks.) After this sort of interaction, one can imagine what I was thinking when I spotted a black bull-emblazoned garbage truck making its way down Royal street a few evenings later. I noticed a few discarded go-boxes on a doorstep, well away from the garbage cans waiting to be picked up. I might mention at this point it was approaching 9p.m. on a Thursday evening. One of my friends, you know the type—the exceedingly optimistic kind of guy, the one who always wins the door prize or raffle, not based on luck, but on the sheer magnitude of his constant positive outlook—he suggested that the gentlemen retrieving the refuse would in fact remove the discarded go-boxes as well. So in a moment of New Orleanian-like zen I disagreed and we decided to stop our procession and watch. Of course while our group stood spectating, a local Quarterite and a few passing tourists decided to join us in looking at whatever was holding out attention. We could have been watching a police horse dropping bombs in the middle of the street and they still would have wanted in on the festivities. So, the moment of truth upon us, I watched with quiet concern as the first of the garbage cans was emptied and returned to its place on the sidewalk, and then the second, followed by none other than the third. At this point it seemed that the go-boxes would fester in their spot until the unlucky inhabitant of the house came home and, cursing, picked them up and discarded them in the cans not six feet away. Just as quickly as this thought passed, one of the gentlemen on the truck scooped up the waiting go-boxes and tossed them into the back of the roaring black bull. I let out a cheer, as did the random local—“Yeah, Sidney!!,” he proclaimed. My friends laughed, the tourists were relieved that they finally understood what was happening. They chuckled and moved on, undoubtedly to find another Hand-Grenade or hurricane. The garbage-man-turned-hero threw his hand up in a fist; I did the same. Now those commercials make sense. The sense of pride I feel for my city was multiplied ten times that night. |