Treed Off

In one of the last wind storms a large branch fell off a tree the next street over.

Instead of putting it out front of their house where the city work crews were collecting all the fallen branches, for some reason they dragged it through the alley out back and left it in front of our house.

We live in a cul de sac (dead end to the rest of you), and are usually overlooked by most city services as if we don't exist. Our street's branch removal ended a few houses down where the street turns back onto a major road. So the 10-foot branch sat there.

Finally my wife called the city to come pick it up.

In the week it took to send a truck around, some neighbour decided to saw it up for us. Great, except when the city crew came by they found a convenient excuse to not do their job.

"We only take whole branches," he said. "You'll have to saw it up more and tie it with string for yard waste day."

Didn't matter it wasn't my branch, my tree, or that I didn't saw it up to begin with. Off the truck went without the branch.

I thought of dragging it into the middle of the Danforth where they couldn't refuse to take it, or back to the yard where the tree it came from grew. Or just setting fire to it right there.

But you can't fight city hall where it comes to their grudging provison of basic services, so I hacked away until the parts fit in a yard waste bag (which I had to buy as well).

It gave new meaning to the expression "stick it to them".