Don't Touch My Garbage? Fine — Watch Municipal Karma Work.

I work sanitation. I call myself Trash‑Panda — the giant kind, not the bandit kind, because people get weird when you brag about dumpster-diving. One neighbor shouted “Don’t touch my garbage!” like it was a marriage vow. I honored it, to the letter. That’s how you win at passive-aggressive city government: obey policy, collect consequences.

People forget we’ve got rules. We also have hearts, but hearts don’t override municipal codes. So when Mrs. Busybody kept moving her neighbor’s bin into the street (because she’s auditioning for Mayor of Other People’s Yards), we left it. Left a neat little tag. Citation followed. She called us vindictive; I called it due diligence with a high-vis vest. Did I say that? Maybe. Comedy.

Here’s the thing: very often we’re heroes — we’ll drive onto your lawn, grab a bin on the third ring of chaos, chase a runaway bag like it owes us rent (true comments, real people). But when a resident hacks at the system to get someone else fined, the best flex is pure compliance. Don’t touch my garbage? Fine. We didn’t. We touched the outcome. Mic drop, politely folded into an envelope with a barcode.