This is the end, my only friend, the end
Bike mechanics the city over must have known this day was an inevitability. All high and mighty with their mechanical know-how, they would have understood that the milk crate tricks the bicyclist into thinking that her rear rack can bear much more weight than physics will allow.
So what happens to the poor rear rack, after a year of overburdening? It breaks at one of the joints, and because it's made of aluminum, no skilled sauterer can fix the crack. As a result of this foundational flaw, the weight of the milk crate causes one side of the rack to rub against the tire, operating as a really low-functioning (but slowing and irritating nonetheless) brake.
To solve this problem, our heroine removes the milk crate for good, leaving it beside the dumpster outside a friend's apartment in uptown Toronto.
No more milk crate surprises; no more hilarious trash. Farewell, dear readers. Thank you for reading, and may you continue to check in the milk crates of other bicycles around town to further document this phenomenon.
Hell hath broken loose
Amusingly enough, after the last post about a lack of junk in the milk crate, I checked on it today to find a mess of things. The photo doesn't even show them all, so crammed to capacity was the crate. To make things easier for everyone (and also because there aren't enough lists on this site) I've compiled an itemized list of the contents:
1. One soiled copy of last week's
Now.
2. One empty styrofoam cup, of the smallest possible size.
3. One travel size bottle of Scope mouthwash, Cinammon Ice flavour.
4. One paper bag, crushed.
5. One bag of corn nuts.
6. Two mints, still in wrappers.
7. One empty mint wrapper.
8. One cardboard pizza plate, orange in colour.
9. One piece of falafel wrap paper, stained with hot sauce.
C'est tout.
Ho-hum.
You know, the garbage that people were leaving in the milk crate was a lot more random and entertaining when I wasn't writing about it. It's as though the neighbourhood litterers got wind of this insanely successful blog and decided to stop being quirky, trading empty extravagant champagne bottles for Burger King blueberry pie boxes. Yawn. I for one am bored of this racket, how 'bout you kids?
The stars have aligned
This last bit of treasure is astrologically appropriate -- it's a flyer for Virgo Beauty Salon. They specialize in "all types of hair" and are currently looking for a part-time barber. Part-time barber I am not, but virgo I am. I should start getting my hair cut there, right? That would only make sense. They've also got a "discount special on treatment and colour," whatever that means. I don't really know what these treatments are, but maybe they're for hair types other than my own.
Anyway, this flyer made it into my milk crate, despite the presence of several other bikes with milk crates and classier baskets in the vicinity. It's as though the litterer knew.
647-280-9699
So he’s walking down Bloor on a sunny Friday afternoon, and he thinks to himself, “Man, I really could go for a cigarette right about now.” Reaching into the inner pocket of his vest (he is nothing if not hobo-chic) he pulls out his pack of DK’S, that “full flavor Canadian blend” that spells flavour the American way, despite being emblazoned with a Canadian flag. Opening the pack he grabs the last cigarette, lights it, and begins smoking.
But what to do with that empty pack? Oh, here comes the answer—toss it into the milk crate of that bike parked in front of the market. This corner is missing a garbage can after all.
And that’s how the crate ended up with this last memento. Unfortunately for the unknown smoker, however, there was a phone number written on the back of the empty pack. Although not formally trained in the art of handwriting interpretation, I can say one thing with certainty: it looks like a girl’s writing. So it seems dude has lost out: from the way she curves the two circles of her ‘8’s, I’d guess she’s fairly attractive.
Empty coffee cup, part two
The one thing that has been somewhat consistent about the milk crate's interaction with the city at large has been the fact that strangers often remove the garbage from the milk crate before I get the chance to. (Don't believe me? You clearly haven't been reading regularly. See the following for proof: "Back in black!" "And who will clean the milk crates?" comments to "Looks like garbage but it feels like..." and "New gifts for 2006!")
With this trend in mind, I thought nothing of it when an empty coffee cup landed, mouth down, on the post to which the bike gets locked. "It'll disappear soon enough," I thought, "there's no need for me to pick it up and throw it out."
I could not have been more wrong. Just take a look at the photo. There's the empty coffee cup. It's been hanging out for several weeks now. Other bikes have come and gone, garbage day has come and gone, but it's proving to be a stubborn loiterer.
A letter? For my milk crate?
A folded bit of correspondence landed in the crate the other day. I don’t receive a lot of mail that isn’t a bill of some kind or other, so I was a little excited by this. Of course (much like the recent Tim Horton’s cup) it was a bit of a disappointment. Not exclusively addressed to me, it turned out to be an odd poster sort of thing. The photos don’t exactly do it justice, so here is a transcription of what it says:
Thank god, (AT THE RISK OF HAVING YOUR HEAD CUT OFF)
Our Soldiers are dying in
afghanistan to restore their right
to kill christians. Good thing.
[photo]
CAN YOU SAY “RED-BUTTON-TIME”? I KNEW YOU COULD.
(Oh, and for the record, the all-caps text was handwritten, also in all-caps. I modified nothing.)
