Trash Burgler

So we've got this guy in our neighborhood who goes through everyone's trash on garbage night. We call him the Trash Burgler. Its like the Hamburgler, but way less cool.

I think it was during the summer that we first realized this. First, our friend's iPod was stolen out of her car. Then, Rex would start barking~ no~ howling in the middle of the night out of the big window. We would get up and look, and there he would be. Sometimes driving his car and stopping at every garbage can, sometimes walking with a flashlight. Initally we were more annoyed that our dog was waking us up at midnight or one am. So when we realized that he was only going through the recycle bin, we kept it up by the house and brought it down in the morning. Gordo actually called the police to inquire, because he was going through our stuff, and they said that once the garbage is at the curb, it isn't really ours anymore. I felt kind of bad for the guy, I mean, who goes through people's garbage? And I figured, we threw it away, we obviously didn't want it. So up by the house the recycle bin stayed, and we didn't hear from the Trash Burgler (or Rex) again.

Until last night. Having Penny means that we are getting up at all hours of the night to take her outside so that we don't have accidents in the house. At midnight I took her out to pee. And there he was. Flashlight in hand, pajamas on legs he went house to house. And then I saw it. He went to a house diagnol from ours that didn't have their garbage can at the end of the driveway. He walked straight up their driveway to where the garbage can was~ leaning against their house. Wow, that's balls, I thought. Penny peed and I went back inside. I yelled to Gordo that our friend had returned and he came to look out the window. Rex caught sight of him and started in with the howl. Rex alerted Penny and she began to bark and howl. Did this stop the Trash Burgler? No, of course not. We lost sight of him for a minute, but then we saw the bounce of the flashlight. Again, we saw him in a driveway, right at someone's house. OMG, my friends, OMG. All these months that we've had our recycle bin by our front door; was he walking right up to it? I mean, has he no shame? Is nothing sacred? Not even our garbage?

I'm trying to understand the Trash Burgler, put myself in his shoes. He's a forty-something guy who lives with his parents. Lives with his parents three houses away from us. I want to understand him and feel for him, but I just feel kind of weirded out.

At one thirty when we finally went back to sleep, I may have told Gordo that if I ever get to the point where I am going through people's garbage, to shoot me in the foot so that I can't.