It all started when Nancy Sreenan looked out her back-porch window and saw two garbagemen hauling her Christmas tree away. “They were dumping the Christmas tree with the regular garbage,” says Sreenan, who lives with her husband and daughter on the near northwest side. “I knew that wasn’t right because I knew the city was supposed to collect the Christmas trees separately and then recycle them.”
“The great thing about mulch is that we can use it to help other trees and plants grow. If you spread mulch around a tree it decomposes, and as it decomposes it releases nutrients into the soil. It also acts as a buffer, making the ground warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. And it retains soil moisture, which means you don’t have to water your tree as much.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Sreenan did just that. An operator put her on hold, which gave her time to think. The more she thought, the more she realized that the woman from Streets and Sanitation was wrong, that it was ludicrous to ask the Park District about garbage collection. She hung up, called Streets and Sanitation back, and demanded that the receptionist connect her with the office supervisor. A woman who said her name was Ms. Brady answered.
“Then he told me that one of his workers hurt himself picking up a tree–I guess he pricked himself with a needle. And that the problem is we have too much mulch. That’s when I realized he didn’t really know what mulch was. A lot of people don’t know what mulch is.”
Sreenan then called Ms. Brady at Streets and Sanitation back. “Just to sort of rub it in and let her know that I had been right all along. And she said ‘I never told you those things.’ I said ‘Yes, you did.’ She said ‘No, I didn’t.’ Sure enough, the more I listened, the more I realized that she wasn’t the ‘Ms. Brady’ I had talked to. The person I had talked to had been an impostor. That left me feeling mad and unsatisfied, because I’ll never know who it was that sent me off on this wild-goose chase in the first place.”
Maybe next year it’ll be cold.
