A Hypothesis on Yard Clipping Collection

Hypothesis: The more bags / containers of yard clippings one puts out for the weekly curbside collection, the greater the probability such collection will never occur.

Test: For the past eight spring / summer / fall cycles, Hopper has regularly put out at least1 large plastic container of grass clippings (raked leaves during the fall) at his curb. A quarter of the time he puts 2 large plastic containers out to the curb. And one-twentieth of the time, 5 percent, he puts out 3 or more containers.

Results: Hopper notes that when he puts one container out to the curb in the morning, he finds it empty when he returns home from work. He also finds when he puts out 2 containers there is a 75 percent chance they will be empty when he returns home. When there are 3 or more containers, he notices there is only a 20 percent chance they will all be emptied.

Note 1: When collection does not occur, Hopper has to drag all the full containers back to the side of his house.

Note 2: When Hopper has to drag all the full containers back to the side of his house, this makes him very angry.

Note 3: This necessitates Mrs. Hopper having to call up the town government, negotiate a labyrinthine voicemail system designed to be a moat against the general public, make several more calls until a live person is reached, and then berate said person for the town’s lockstep one-to-one correspondence with Mr. Hopper’s abovementioned hypothesis.

Conclusion: Hopper spends twenty minutes drawing two graphs and trying to extrapolate a mathematical formula for all this, but realizes he has no clue how to figure this out. Perhaps a math book needs to be cracked. No, wait, there are about seven-hundred-and-fifty more important, pressing issues he needs to take care of. Just visualize some sort of steep parabolic curve and nod sagely.

Recommendation: Vote all the incumbents out in 90 days!