Why I hate living in Gainesville, Florida

The reasons why I hate living in Gainesville are numerous. They grow with each and every day. Today, however, the reasons why I hate living in Gainesville have to do with trash/recycling.

• We got our utility bill the other day and with it came a notice that if you had a "secondary" (meaning, presumably, not your primary) freezer or refrigerator, you could get $75 by asking the city to come get it. They provided a phone number. As luck would have it, we do have a secondary freezer that we're wanting to get rid of. I called the number. The person on the phone, after being wildly suspicious as to why I wanted to get rid of our freezer, then shuttled me to a different office (ie, not the utility office from whence the notice emerged), and then the next person shuttled me to yet a third person. That person promised that "someone" would be by to pick up the freezer "sometime" tomorrow between 7 am and 9 pm. Well, that's a handy 14-hour period that I'll be sure to be home for.
• We put several bags of leaves out for yard waste pick up. Let's go ahead and say that there were about a dozen bags. Not too strange, considering that we live on about a third of an acre and have a veritable assload of trees. The yard guys picked up about half of them and left us a note saying that we had exceeded the number of bags that we were allotted for a single pick-up. Now the guy across the street had roughly the same amount of leaves, but in bags twice the size of ours (therefore using half the number of bags we used). Needless to say, all of his bags were duly taken away.
• Finally, when I hauled our trash can off of the curb tonight, I noticed that only 1/4 of the trash had been taken. It seems that the handy robotic arm that dumps the trash can into the trash truck really isn't so handy at getting all of the trash. As it's after 5:00, I'll have to call tomorrow to arrange another pickup.

There are times when basic living in this wretched town is so frustrating, I feel like we should have been given a big-ass book of rules and regulations to follow. "Welcome to Alachua County. Here's your phone book, your map, and a rule book to help you maintain your sanity. Call us if you have any questions. Please note, however, that our offices are closed on weekends, federal holidays, state holidays, imaginary holidays, and between the hours of 6 am and midnight. Have a nice day!"