This October, many of our haulers entered our “Haulerween” spooky story competition in hopes of winning some cold hard cash. Working in this industry, we often forget exactly what goes on on the front-lines of waste management. It isn’t necessarily the most glamorous gig, but it’s so important to the success of our communities. The rules for the contest were simple: submit your creepiest, weirdest, or grossest story on the job. From hog heads to large snakes, all of the entries sent a chill up my spine. After two weeks of hair-raising emails flooding our inboxes; we picked our winner. No one had me quite on the edge of my seat like the submission from Bay Disposal and Recycling! Congratulations!
Read the winning (and blood-curdling) entry below:
“The fog cascaded across the horizon as daylight broke. There was an eerie silence in the air as the 10-ton front load trash truck slowly drove up the bumpy path towards the 8-yard container. Robert, the attentive 50-year-old front-load driver, noticed a dis-figured, slightly slumped over… human, moving slowly across the bumpy road towards the container but saw his trucked and backed away disappearing into the thick wooded area. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The truck roared as the equipment released to grip the container to dump the boxes that filled the container. The can was slowly placed back into its original spot. Robert gave a sigh of relief as he anxiously drove towards the exit wondering what he’d just witnessed. Was the man about to “Discard something into the container? If so, what or WHO was he carrying, Robert thought. Whatever he’d seen on this Halloween morning was extremely unusual!
As Robert continued his pick-ups, he attempted to try and make sense of what he’d just seen and why it quickly disappeared into the woods when it saw his truck? Just then, he was startled by the loud ring of his phone. The monotone voice states, “You must return to Mockingbird Lane to re-dump the container.” Robert was still a bit shaken and really didn’t want to go back to what very well could have been the scene of a crime! Hesitantly, he headed back. Upon arrival and before he got out of his truck he carefully scoped out the area for any moving figure then, got out of his truck and cautiously walked towards the 8-yard container, wondering what might have been discarded since his last pickup, 20 minutes earlier?
Robert was frozen in his tracks as the head of this human-like figure appeared from the dumpster-moaning loudly, as it attempted to escape the dumpster. The figure slid out of the container, placed a body across its shoulders and began to move towards Robert who was frozen with fear! The monster had a sword pierced through his side with what appeared to be a head, gripped in his bloody hand. It continued to move slowly towards Robert. Maggots dropped from the head carried by the monster as it screamed, “HELP ME, HELP ME!”
As the sweat poured down the drivers face, back and legs, the monster dragged closer and closer to Robert’s motionless body until they both stood face to face. Robert began to thaw slowly from his frozen state as he let out a light chuckle noticing that the monster was a man carrying a long stick on his side with the store mannequin’s headless body draped across his shoulders, with the life-size head in his hand. The maintenance man politely asked Robert if he could use the stick to help him loosen the cardboard boxes that were stuck to the bottom of the can. He apologized to Robert for having to return but was pleased to have found the mannequin that was accidentally discarded earlier by one of his newer employees.”
