The Garbage Police showed up at my house in a pre-dawn reconnaissance. Reminiscent of some film noir scene from the '50s, a tank-sized truck loomed in front of my house, truly menacing at that hour. Some slow-moving color spots caught the streetlight's beam, weaving like disembodied ghouls down the suburban street.

Only my house blazed with kitchen light that early, so I sidled to the still shadowed front door, cracked it open and faintly made out two dark-suited bodies in reflective vests lifting the curbside cart covers. They bent to peer inside each one as they progressed.

Fear and loathing in ... Palo Alto?

It was Wednesday: garbage pickup day chez moi. I knew savvy scavengers looted bins to salvage cans for rebates. I'd experienced poop packages deposited by early morning pet owners. This was different — nothing added nor removed. After sunrise, I realized the monster out front was some type of utility truck, and soon after, it was gone.

I forgot about it ... until later that day. I opened my garage to pull in the carts and saw a small paper rectangle caught on the bar between the wheels of my small black bin. An avid minimalist, I have smugly reduced my trash, which rarely fills a mini-size cart. Although from time to time a scrap or two does escape, this small piece of paper was not errant flotsam but an official, printed note. And noteworthy! One of the garbage squad enforcers had added a curt statement of acceptable garbage protocol, clarifying my obviously failed adherence to the formal rules stated above.

Under the Zero Waste logo was the explanation that this tag was part of a Random Waste Sorting Survey, sanctioned by the Palo Alto Municipal Code ... State Law ... and Senate Bill ... all correctly numbered and copied. It was no-nonsense feedback on my inept, under par, and planet- destroying sorting. Two more paragraphs cited the pertinent bill and requirements for residents, complete with the cryptic symbols for each type of throwaway, a leafy compost wreath, the triangle of arrows for recyclables, and — darkly clear — the distinctive drawing of the black garbage bin. Circled! My bad!

There was more small print listing more regulations — then the firm, personalized, thick pen rebuke: Aluminum foil (recycle). Bathroom tissue/paper towels (compost).

Ewww, bathroom tissue? No way! But I began to see the light ... deep in the dark bin. Head hanging, I added my own silent admonishment. "Get it, old lady? How hard is it, you unwoke fud! Do you want to single-handedly botch all the efforts of senate bills and municipal codes? Who are you to buck the whole state of California?"

Here they'd come, two overtime experts, bundled up against the autumn chill just to scout not only my haphazard hierarchy of wanton waste but to shake up my whole laissez faire attitude toward our trash-strewn world. They were the government, and they were here to help! Or else!

To add the proverbial insult to injury, a few years ago I'd received delightfully positive feedback on this same subject with my tongue-in-cheek spoof published as a Weekly Guest Opinion: "Hazardous Home Maintenance via Compost Bin" humorously spelling out most seniors' "retirement in place" struggles with the daily snags of property upkeep and repair. I'd confessed my sad saga with sorting snafus along with my weary waffling among the Blue, Green or Black carts!

After such a welcome reception of my environmental challenges, I'd submitted my compost bin commentary to other publications. Cart confusion caught interest nationwide, and I earned more kudos, even a prize. It seemed I'd hit a nerve, voiced a universal problem; I wasn't the only homeowner to grumble and fret about garbage. Large or small, the bin conundrum also stymied others.

I call myself a good citizen. Most of all, my reputation as a long-involved resident, "with-it" senior and all around smart cookie (for my age) was at stake. Silly me, I couldn't be the only garbage goof-off. Hoping I wouldn't be caught "casing the cul-de-sac," I drove slowly around my street, glancing at other curbside bins for a glimpse of the same Zero Waste warning sticker. None! Not on top of a bin or near the wheels. I scanned driveways, but there wasn't even a breeze to blame for wafting away a city summons. Maybe I truly was the only miscreant on the block, the sole Stupido who couldn't follow this one simple solution to climate change?

But wait a gosh-darn minute. How could foil go into recycling if it's crusted with baked-on salmon skin burned to a crisp? And doesn't reusing plastic bags imply wasting precious water washing them, let alone the scary breakdown of plastic that's microscopically doing us in? I thought recycling demanded no residue or latent gunk, that it needed to be thoroughly dry. And even if "bathroom tissue" just means Kleenex, that's still really slimy and possibly contagious! Talk about gunky!

Still, I knew the slogan: If an "avant" idea starts in California, so goes the nation! Our country's recyclables have mushroomed so much that even China won't take them off our hands.

So what's next? Whittling down real rubbish is our next "messy" challenge. Remember the garbage scows that made headlines years ago slinking down New York's East River to some watery wasteland? And there's that Texas-sized nightmare of multi-trash swirling mid-Pacific Ocean. Horrors!

Refuse to have refuse! That's my new motto!

So goodbye Garbage Police! Less is indeed more in our Now World. It's the next new thing — to bid a complete farewell to old-fashioned garbage. The only problem I foresee is losing all that down-in-the-dumps garbage landfill that's possibly earmarked to build (also state-city-mandated) affordable housing out of.