street cleaning trucks teddy bear trap

It's Wednesday 15 April 2009 2am and the street cleaning trucks just pulled away. I don't mind street cleaning trucks after all that's tax dollars at work. I don't mind the middle of the night either as that keeps traffic congestion down. No what bothers me is my neighbour three doors down has little kids and one of them threw their teddy bear into the street a few days ago. The mother said leave it there if she wants it she will get it herself. So it lay there in it's big blue glory.
Untill one of the pack of street sweepers came along a little after 11pm and swept it up and clogged it's machines just outside my front door (well down ten feet but it was followed by two other trucks.) So it sat there holding up the rest of the trucks in the street cleaning crew for a couple of hours while waiting for someone to fix the problem. In the beginning I expected a Darwin Award when I saw the driver get out reach under to retrieve the firmly wedged Teddy Bear with the engine still running. Unfortunately the other truck driver stopped him and told him to sit in the driver's seat and wait. Okay I can see one little truck waiting but five trucks waiting and the diesel engines on all the time during the wait? The noise and vibration is one thing but what about the fumes and wasted gas? The flashing lights? They could have abandoned the one cleaner to wait and proceed to clean the rest of the area but they all waited. For hours.
That's why I am up at now 2:30am slowly falling asleep because untill the past while the noise and light was enough to keep me up. That and the impatience to wasted money on gas, man hours, and the enviroment. Is it any wonder our city has financial problems from time to time?