Garbage trucks are cool. They’re loud and smelly and make lots of stops. And let’s face it, they’re in the truck family and all trucks are pretty awesome. There have been several picture books devoted just to garbage trucks such as I Stink by Kate McMullan or Vroom, Vroom Garbage Truck by Asia Citro. So, it was no surprise when Matthew was infatuated with garbage trucks when he was little. On Wednesdays, he would run and stand on the couch and look out the window and watch them make their stops. If he was upstairs in his room, he would find a way on top of his dresser to look out the window! Evidence indicated that a small rocking chair was helpful in his climbing.
When Matthew was 6 or 7 he had an ABA therapist that introduced him to YouTube! On a whim, she had searched garbage trucks and guess what? There are LOTS of garbage truck videos on YouTube! A lot of the videos simply follow the route of the garbage truck (narration optional). Suddenly our boy who didn’t like to watch movies or sit still for much of anything could watch garbage trucks for at least an hour (longer if we would have let him!) He would get excited and “gee” and flap to his heart’s content. He got to see the older trucks, where the garbage men had to grab the garbage cans and dump them in, the newer trucks with the arm that reached out and took the garbage cans and dumped them, and garbage trucks in other countries! One of his personal favorites was a video set to the song “Bad Boys” from the TV show Cops. I’m not sure who is making these videos (maybe an adult on the spectrum themselves?), but I can tell you that many of the videos have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of views. Even Matthew couldn’t rack up that many views all by himself.
Around that same time, Matthew became very interested in our little wastebaskets upstairs. He would dump from one wastebasket to another. He would take the bags out and to make sure that there was enough garbage to take it out, he would make his own garbage by crumpling up toilet paper or Kleenex. He could empty a whole Kleenex box or unroll a whole roll of toilet paper in a matter of minutes. Until I finally figured it out, I kept wondering why we were going through so much toilet paper! My personal favorite was when I found out he was throwing away his underwear to make garbage! Outside of our house there are other wastebaskets that he loves. There’s a wastebasket that hooks onto a cart at church. He frequently takes the wastebasket off the cart and moves it somewhere else and sits down next to it and taps on it. He has done this for years. Occasionally someone will say something to him or wonder what he is doing, but most of them know, “That’s just Matthew…” I would be remiss if I didn’t mention something else that has stood the test of time - visiting the garbage carts that are blocking off the ends of the street during a block party. He will sit on the curb and keep watch over them.
Now that Matthew is eleven I don’t see him running to see the garbage truck or watching garbage trucks on YouTube anymore. Apparently garbage trucks was just the gateway to other interesting things to watch on YouTube, like rollercoasters, fair rides, escalators, wagons, swings, or people making slime. What I notice most right now is a fascination with the garbage carts of each of our next door neighbors. After school on Wednesdays he needs to go down to the end of the street and close their lids and pull the garbage carts to a specific spot, but still on the grass closest to the road. When I’m lucky I can convince him to bring their garbage carts back up their driveway by racing him with ours. He is also particular about their garbage carts in their driveway. On one side they like to turn their garbage cart to one side so they can reach out their door and throw stuff away easily. They always know when Matthew has made a visit as their garbage cart is turned the “right” way. On the other side, they are just driving Matthew nuts because they have been keeping their garbage carts in their garage! If he sees their garage door open, he feels the need to go over there and start to correct this atrocity until he’s stopped by my neighbor or me. Our neighbor has promised him that they will be back outside again soon.
I don’t know where his trash adventures will take us in the future, but according to Matthew a world without garbage, waste baskets or garbage trucks would really STINK!
(Notice the garbage truck shirt!)
