No Taste for Waste? Want Junk Displaced?

Fifty Bucks in Cash Eradicates Your Trash

Call (805) 555-2999

Leave your name, address, and a list of the items you want removed. One-time offer, so don’t delay!

Cash only. No checks. No credit cards.

We accept carpet, scrap metal, discarded furniture, lumber, tires, appliances, leaf & garden waste, mattresses, and anything else you want to get rid of.

We’ll be in your neighborhood on Monday, October 24.

The ad was catchy and the guy made it easy to take him up on his offer. Fifty bucks was cheap, especially since it had to cover the fees at the local dump. Robert Dietz and I had spent the better part of two days searching the very boxes the junk hauler had carted off. I remembered loading some of them into Henry’s station wagon, moving them from Pete’s office to my studio, where Dietz and I sat cross-legged on the floor, going through them item by item. I was guessing we’d barely finished the search when the junk hauler began canvassing the neighborhood in his search for work.

Ruth returned, saying, “Sorry about that.”

“This is the flier the junk man left?”

She nodded. “I kept it in case my neighbor needed him. I swear he cleans his garage every other month.”

“Didn’t the timing strike you as odd?”

“Are you kidding? It was perfect. I don’t know what I’d have done with all that crap if he hadn’t come along when he did.”

“So two days after Dietz and I searched the boxes, someone just happened to stick this in your screen door.”

“Yes.”

“You read the flier and did what in response?”

“Just what it said. I left a message telling him I had a garage full of stuff I needed to get rid of. I knew he’d be in the neighborhood the twenty-fourth, so all I had to do was give him my address. I had to be at work, so I put the fifty bucks in an envelope and taped it to the back door. I came home, he’d emptied the garage, and everything looked great.”

“So you never actually laid eyes on him and you never got his name?”

“I needed the garage cleaned. I wasn’t looking for a friend. What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m not a fan of coincidences. I know they happen in life, but you’ve been plagued with happy accidents and it seems off to me. You mind if I try the number?”

She seemed skeptical, but she gestured her assent.

I carried the flier as I crossed to the phone. I picked up the handset and punched in the number. The line rang twice, and then a three-tone signal sounded at an earsplitting pitch. I held out the handset so mine wasn’t the only hearing under assault. An automated operator in a singsong voice said, “I’m sorry, but the number you’ve dialed is no longer in service.” She went on to tell us what we could do about it, which was precious little.