Snooty Garbage Men & The Distinguished Refuse Collection Society

The morning sun had barely kissed the grimy streets of Mondonte when Anthony Borschar (/bɔr ʃɑr/, bor-SHAR, if you please—one must enunciate properly) adjusted his monogrammed latex gloves with a delicate pinch of his fingers. His monocle—24-karat gold with a chain made from recycled soda can tabs (upcycled by Cartier, naturally)—glinted as he leaned forward to inspect the overflowing dumpster before him. He wrinkled his nose—not at the putrid stench of three-day-old Chinese takeout congealing in its grease-stained cartons, mind you, but at the pedestrian quality of its arrangement.

"Honestly, Mr. Karmarde," he sniffed to his colleague, who was currently dangling a trash bag between two fingers as if it were a soiled diaper, "these residents continue to demonstrate an appalling lack of sophistication in their waste disposal. No separation of organics from recyclables. How gauche."

Eugine Karmarde (/kɑr-mɑr-deɪ/, kar-mar-DAY, for those who value linguistic precision), resplendent in his haute couture hazmat vest (custom-tailored in Milan, naturally) and a full-length white mink coat that dragged through puddles of unidentifiable brown sludge without him batting an eye, tilted his head back and peered down his substantial nose at the offending garbage. A coffee ground had somehow affixed itself to the hem of his mink, joining company with what appeared to be a smear of ketchup and a wilted lettuce leaf.

"Quite right, quite right. I daresay I spotted a plastic champagne flute in the Carrots' bin last Tuesday. Plastic, Mr. Borschar. As if one would ever toast with anything less than Waterford crystal before discarding it." He gestured dramatically with the trash bag, causing a trickle of mystery liquid—somewhere between brown and green, with the viscosity of motor oil and the smell of putrification—to drip onto his Italian leather shoes. He didn't even flinch.

From the cabin of their pristine white garbage truck—freshly detailed each morning and equipped with leather seats, a built-in espresso machine, and a chandelier that tinkled with each pothole—their foreman, Chester Haute-Refuse, extended one white-gloved hand clutching a bottle of Dom Pérignon 2008.

"Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to complete the Turnip residence before the vintage loses its optimal serving temperature," he called out in clipped, Oxford-inflected tones. "We have reservations at Le Poubelle Magnifique for our eleven o'clock refuse tasting."

Anthony checked his Rolex—the one encrusted with what he insisted were "genuine landfill diamonds"—and gasped. "Good heavens, is it half past already? Mr. Karmarde, we simply must hurry. You know how cross Chef Garbaggio gets when we're late for the dégustation of this week's finest discarded delicacies."

With practiced efficiency born of aristocratic ennui, the two men began their work. But such work it was! Each bag was lifted with the reverence usually reserved for ancient manuscripts. Anthony paused mid-toss to examine a banana peel, its blackened skin covered in a fine fuzz of white mold that had begun to achieve what could only be described as architectural ambition—small towers of fungus reaching skyward like a microscopic city.

"Ecuadorian," he pronounced, adjusting his monocle to better scrutinize the specimen, letting it drop into the truck's gleaming hopper with a disdainful flick. "Adequate at best. The Turnips could afford Jamaican, but they insist on this pedestrian produce."

He reached deeper into the bin, extracting a yogurt container still half-full of strawberry-flavored cultures that had separated into layers of pink water and chunky white sediment. "And look at this. Expiration date of October 2nd. They couldn't even finish it within a reasonable timeframe. No commitment to their dairy products whatsoever."

"Speaking of which," Eugine said, producing a small leather-bound notebook from his mink coat pocket, "I believe it's time for our mid-morning aromatic assessment. Shall we?"

Anthony's eyes lit up behind his monocle. "Ah yes, the sommelier evaluation! Splendid idea, Mr. Karmarde. Chester, if you would be so kind as to pour the palate cleansers?"

Chester emerged from the truck carrying a silver tray with three crystal tumblers of sparkling water with lemon, along with what appeared to be small cubes of bread. "For cleansing the olfactory palate between specimens, gentlemen."

The two men positioned themselves before the Turnips' main refuse bin with the solemnity of priests before an altar. Anthony adjusted his monocle and leaned forward, waving his gloved hand over the opening to waft the scent toward his nose. He inhaled deeply, his eyes closing in concentration.

"Mmmmm," he hummed, swirling the air before his face as if it were a wine glass. "I'm detecting... yes... top notes of three-day-old poultry—chicken, specifically—with a robust middle note of citrus peels that have achieved optimal fermentation. And is that...?" He sniffed again, more delicately this time. "Yes, undertones of spoiled milk with just a whisper of coffee grounds. The finish is... aggressive. Bold. Perhaps too bold for my refined sensibilities."

Eugine quickly scribbled notes in his leather journal, then stepped forward for his own assessment. He took a long, theatrical sniff, holding one finger in the air as if testing the wind. "I concur with your poultry assessment, Mr. Borschar, though I would argue it's more of a brazen note than merely robust. And I'm picking up something you missed—a cheeky little essence of banana peel, oxidized to perfection, with mineral undertones suggesting the bag was left near a damp basement. Altogether, I'd rate this a..." he paused dramatically, "six out of ten on the Refuse Richness Scale."

"Generous," Anthony muttered, making his own notes. "I was thinking five point five at best."

They moved to the next bin—the Carrots' recycling container. Chester handed them each a cube of bread and a sip of sparkling water. "Palate cleanse, gentlemen. We must approach each bin with fresh olfactory senses."

After the ritual cleansing, Eugine approached the blue recycling bin with the reverence of a man entering a wine cellar. He lifted the lid with both hands, letting it fall back slowly to release the aroma gradually—a technique he called "the reveal." He waved his hand over the opening in slow, circular motions.

"Ohhhhh my," he breathed. "Mr. Borschar, you simply must experience this."

Anthony stepped forward, his monocle glinting with anticipation. He took a long, appreciative sniff. "Exquisite! The cardboard has that delightful musty quality—I'm estimating forty-eight hours of moisture exposure, just enough to activate the paper's natural aromatics without crossing into the vulgar territory of actual mold. And the plastic bottles—do you detect that sharp, almost acidic note from the remaining juice residue?"

"Orange juice," Eugine confirmed, consulting his notes. "Pulp-free, premium brand. One can always tell the difference. The cheap brands have a certain tinniness to their decay."

"Indeed, indeed." Anthony took another sniff, this time with his eyes closed, his free hand conducting an invisible orchestra. "And there—buried beneath it all—is that printer paper? With a hint of toner? Someone has been discarding classified documents without proper shredding. How deliciously scandalous."

They moved to a third bin, this one belonging to the Parsnips. Before even opening it, both men recoiled slightly.

"Oh dear," Eugine whispered. "This one has a presence."

With extreme caution, Anthony lifted the lid a mere inch and immediately stumbled backward, hand pressed to his chest. "Seafood! Mr. Karmarde, we have seafood!" He fanned himself with his handkerchief. "Shrimp shells, if I'm not mistaken, left to mature in direct sunlight for what I can only assume was several days. The complexity is... overwhelming. Notes of ocean brine, ammonia, and something almost... almost fungal in nature."

Eugine, ever the professional, forced himself to take a proper assessment sniff despite the danger. His face went through several colors before he managed to speak. "I'm detecting at least five separate seafood species in various states of decomposition. The shrimp, yes, but also—is that crab? And possibly... good God... is that lobster? The extravagance! The waste!"

"The bouquet though," Anthony said, having recovered enough to take another cautious sniff. "One must admit, there's a certain je ne sais quoi to the way the shellfish aromatics have melded with what appears to be garlic butter and old wine. It's almost... almost artistic in its offensiveness."

"Shall we rate it?" Eugine asked, pen poised over his journal.

Both men stood in contemplative silence, occasionally wafting the air toward their noses for final assessments.

"Nine out of ten for sheer boldness," Anthony finally declared. "Minus two points for lack of subtlety, but one must respect the audacity of the scent profile."

"Agreed. Nine out of ten. A polarizing vintage, but memorable nonetheless." Eugine snapped his journal shut with satisfaction.

Chester appeared with fresh champagne. "Gentlemen, I believe that concludes this morning's tasting. Shall we move forward with the actual collection?"

"I suppose we must," Anthony sighed, as if being asked to perform manual labor was a terrible imposition—which, to be fair, he considered it to be.

Eugine had discovered something that made his eyes widen with horror. His mink coat swept through a puddle of what might have once been orange juice as he gestured wildly. "Mr. Borschar! Mr. Borschar, come quickly!" He stood frozen, one hand pressed to his heart, the other clutching a bag that was leaking something viscous and brown—possibly chocolate syrup, possibly gravy, possibly something far more sinister. "They've... they've discarded a perfectly aged wheel of Brie. Look at this marbling! This crystallization! It's only three weeks past its sell-by date!"

Anthony's monocle actually popped out in shock, dangling from its chain as he rushed over, his gloved hands trembling. The Brie sat there among crumpled tissues, soggy pizza boxes with cheese welded to cardboard, and what appeared to be an entire lasagna that had achieved sentience through the power of mold alone—a magnificent landscape of green, white, and blue fuzz that undulated in the morning breeze.

"The savages," Anthony breathed, reverently placing the cheese on their mobile serving cart—a silver trolley that rolled alongside them, currently displaying caviar (beluga, naturally), toast points, and three types of champagne flutes for different varieties of refuse. "We shall add this to the luncheon service."

A neighboring homeowner, Carol Martinez, emerged in her bathrobe to take out her own trash. She stared, mouth agape, as Eugine poured them each a glass of Cristal, the golden liquid catching the morning light like liquid sunshine.

"Gentlemen," she ventured, "aren't you just... garbage men?"

The silence that followed was so frosty it could have preserved seafood. Anthony drew himself up to his full height, somehow managing to look down his nose at her despite being three feet below her driveway.

"Sanitation engineers," he corrected icily, "of the Distinguished Refuse Collection Society. We hold seventeen Michelin stars in waste management, madam. Mr. Karmarde here has a PhD in Trash Aesthetics from the Sorbonne."

"And Mr. Borschar," Eugine added, swirling his champagne with the expertise of a sommelier, "is a certified Master of Bin Ceremonies. Show some respect."

Chester's voice drifted imperiously from the truck's cabin: "Ms. Martinez, I see you've placed your bottles in with general waste rather than in the designated recycling receptacle. How frightfully common. We'll have to mark this in your file. Three more infractions and we'll be forced to serve you with a strongly worded letter on embossed stationery."

Carol stammered an apology and retreated inside, but not before catching sight of Chester spreading caviar on a cracker with a mother-of-pearl knife, his pinky extended at a precise 45-degree angle.

As the pristine white truck began to roll forward toward the next residence, a commotion erupted from down the street. A woman in mismatched slippers came sprinting after them, clutching a black garbage bag that was clearly past its structural integrity. A hole in the bottom left a breadcrumb trail of coffee grinds, soggy napkins, and what appeared to be last week's spaghetti sauce splattering across the pavement with each frantic step.

"WAIT! WAIT! PLEASE!" she shrieked, one arm windmilling desperately while the other struggled to hold the disintegrating bag. A banana peel fell out and she nearly slipped on it, stumbling but managing to keep running. "I FORGOT TO PUT IT OUT! PLEASE STOP!"

Anthony slowly turned his head, his monocle catching the morning light as he surveyed the scene with the expression one might reserve for discovering a slug in one's salad. His nose tilted upward at such an extreme angle he was practically examining the clouds.

"I have never," he breathed, each word dripping with scandalized horror.

Mr. Karmarde clutched his chest, his mink coat billowing dramatically behind him as the truck continued its stately progression. "Chasing after the refuse collection vehicle?" he gasped. "Like some sort of... of... commoner?"

"The audacity!" Anthony added, pressing his monogrammed handkerchief to his forehead as if he might swoon. "The sheer vulgarity of it all!"

The woman was gaining ground, her face red from exertion, the bag now hemorrhaging its contents in earnest—a yogurt container tumbled out, followed by several dryer sheets and what might have been a half-eaten sandwich. "PLEASE! IT'S GARBAGE DAY!"

Chester, from his position in the driver's seat, merely adjusted his white gloves and pressed his foot ever so slightly harder on the accelerator. "Gentlemen," he called back coolly, "I believe we must maintain our schedule. One simply cannot accommodate such unseemly behavior. What would that say about our standards?"

"Indeed!" Mr. Karmarde agreed, turning his back entirely to the pursuing woman and examining his champagne flute as if it contained the secrets of the universe. "To think she would run after us. Does she not understand the proper protocol? One places refuse at the curb at the designated time. This is basic civilization!"

"PLEASE!" the woman wailed, now only twenty feet behind them but losing steam. A trail of garbage marked her desperate pursuit like some sort of grotesque parade route. "I OVERSLEPT!"

Anthony raised one gloved hand to his ear in an exaggerated gesture of deafness. "I'm sorry, I cannot hear the desperate pleading of the unprepared," he announced to no one in particular. His monocle gleamed as he turned to face forward once more, chin elevated to a truly impressive height. "Mr. Karmarde, shall we discuss the vintage of this morning's champagne? I detect notes of superiority and refinement."

"Quite superior, Mr. Borschar. Much like ourselves."

The truck turned the corner, leaving the woman standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by the carnage of her exploded garbage bag, her chest heaving as she watched them disappear. A wet tea bag slowly slid off her slipper.

From the back of the truck, both men raised their champagne flutes in a synchronized toast, noses pointed skyward, pinkies extended at matching angles, completely unmoved by the chaos they'd left in their wake.

"Standards, Mr. Karmarde," Anthony said with a satisfied sniff. "One must have standards."

"Naturally, Mr. Borschar. Naturally."

Three blocks later, disaster struck in the form of a hulking, rust-spotted garbage truck rumbling toward them from the opposite direction. The vehicle was emblazoned with "Joe's Trash Service" in peeling letters, and through the grimy windshield, two burly men in stained work clothes were visible, laughing at something on the radio and drinking coffee from—horror of horrors—Styrofoam cups.

"Mr. Karmarde," Anthony whispered, his voice strangled with panic, "are those... are those municipal workers?"

Eugine's face had gone pale beneath his carefully maintained tan. "Dear God. They're coming right toward us." His mink coat seemed to bristle with indignation. "Quick! The windows! Chester, raise the windows!"

With lightning speed, Chester scrambled to engage the electric windows, sealing them inside their pristine cabin. But it wasn't enough. As the offending vehicle drew closer, both Anthony and Eugine could see the state of those workers—sweat-stained caps, dirt under their fingernails, actual stains on their shirts that might have been there for days.

"I'm going to be ill," Anthony moaned, fumbling for a crystal atomizer of French cologne and spraying it frantically around the cabin. The scent of lavender and bergamot filled the air as he pumped the atomizer with increasing desperation. "They're not even wearing gloves! Look at them! Bare-handing the refuse like animals!"

As Joe's truck passed within mere feet of their vehicle, one of the workers—a jovial fellow with a beard that had never seen the inside of a spa—raised his hand in a friendly wave and shouted through his open window, "Hey there, fellow trash men! Beautiful day for it, huh?"

The silence in the pristine truck was deafening.

Eugine's champagne flute slipped from his trembling fingers, caught at the last second by Chester's lightning reflexes. "Did he just... did he just call us..." He couldn't even finish the sentence, one hand pressed dramatically over his mouth.

"Trash men," Anthony hissed, his monocle actually fogging up from the sheer intensity of his distress. "The vulgarity. The absolute baseness of the terminology. We are SANITATION ENGINEERS. We are ARTISANS of waste management!"

"And did you SEE their truck?" Eugine added, his voice rising to near-hysteria. "No chandelier! No espresso machine! I didn't see a SINGLE piece of stemware! How do they even... how do they LIVE like that?"

Chester, maintaining his composure with visible effort, steered their vehicle as far to the opposite side of the street as possible. "Gentlemen, please. We must not let the... the proletariat upset our delicate constitutions. They know not what they do."

"Look at them!" Anthony had turned completely around in his seat, watching the retreating truck with horrified fascination. "They're just... just throwing bags into the hopper! No examination! No critique! No APPRECIATION for the art form!"

"One of them is eating a sandwich," Eugine whispered, scandalized. "While handling refuse. A sandwich from a paper bag. Not even on a proper plate. Mr. Borschar, I fear I may faint."

Anthony produced his monogrammed handkerchief and held it to Eugine's nose. "Breathe, Mr. Karmarde. Just breathe. They're gone now. We're safe."

"But what if we encounter them again?" Eugine's eyes were wide with terror. "What if they try to... to speak to us? What if they want to discuss technique?"

"We'll simply pretend we don't see them," Anthony said firmly, straightening his monocle and taking a fortifying sip of champagne. "The way one ignores pigeons in the park. They exist on an entirely different plane of existence than we do."

Chester nodded sagely from the driver's seat. "Perhaps we should petition the city for separate routes. A gentleman's route, if you will. Clearly marked to keep the... common laborers at an appropriate distance."

"Brilliant," both men breathed in unison.

For the next several minutes, they sat in shaken silence, occasionally glancing in their mirrors to ensure they weren't being followed by any more "regular" garbage men. Anthony reapplied cologne three more times. Eugine had to be talked out of burning his mink coat, convinced it had been "contaminated" by proximity to such pedestrian workers.

"Do you think," Eugine finally ventured, voice still trembling, "that they go home at night and simply... wash? With ordinary soap? From a drugstore?"

Anthony shuddered so violently his monocle fell off entirely. "Please, Mr. Karmarde. I've only just recovered my nerves. Don't make me imagine such horrors."

As they finished the route, Anthony and Mr. Karmarde maintained a running commentary on the neighborhood's declining standards. They tutted over improper bag tying techniques. They lamented the death of artisanal trash. They waxed poetic about the golden age of garbage, when people took pride in their refuse, when waste bins were arranged with flair and composition.

Anthony extracted a soggy bag from the Radishes' bin—it split immediately, spilling its guts across the pavement: used dental floss tangled with hair from the tub drain, empty prescription bottles rolling like tiny orange tumbleweeds, and a collection of dryer lint formed into what looked disturbingly like a small animal. He adjusted his monocle, which had fogged up from the steam rising off a bag of still-warm coffee grounds.

"Deplorable," he muttered, using solid gold tongs to pick through the debris. "Not even separated by bathroom versus kitchen waste. It's all just... mingled." He shuddered, his monocle catching the light as he recoiled.

"Remember the Rothschild estate?" Eugine sighed wistfully, hoisting a bag with one hand while adjusting his ascot with the other. "Now those were bins worth emptying. Every bag tied with silk ribbons. Waste paper folded into origami swans. Absolute class."

"Indeed," Anthony agreed, pausing to dab his brow with his handkerchief—which he then examined critically before placing it in the trash with a disappointed shake of his head. "Not up to my standards. The embroidery work has become sloppy."

By noon, their route complete, the three men gathered around the back of their truck for their daily repast. Chester had laid out the spread on a portable mahogany table: the rescued Brie, tins of imported sardines (found in the Parsnips' bin—"wasteful, but their loss is our gain"), half a box of truffles ("merely slightly melted"), and several bottles of wine that residents had deemed unworthy.

They ate with proper silverware, naturally. They discussed the morning's haul with the seriousness of art critics. They raised their glasses to toast themselves and their refined calling.

"To us," Chester proclaimed, "the last bastion of civilization in an increasingly trashy world!"

"Hear, hear!"

And as the crystal clinked and the champagne flowed, another bag of garbage tumbled into their truck with a muffled, decidedly un-aristocratic thump—splitting open to reveal a cornucopia of rotting vegetables, used cat litter, and what might have been a science experiment from a middle school that had gone catastrophically wrong. They pointedly ignored it, Anthony's monocle gleaming in the afternoon sun, Eugine's mink coat now sporting stains that would make a modern art curator weep with either joy or horror—it was hard to say which. Their noses remained firmly in the air, pinkies perpetually extended.

After all, one mustn't let the realities of actual garbage—with its maggots, its mysterious oozes, its smells that could strip paint—interfere with the art of being insufferably superior about it.

Pronunciation Guide (for those who value proper enunciation):

• Karmarde: /kɑr-mɑr-deɪ/ (kar-mar-DAY)

• Borschar: /bɔr ʃɑr/ (bor-SHAR)