I love being the King of Garbage Strategy: but do I need counselling?

Then the bag from the kitchen tidy. Bang it goes into the red bin. Lots of space left. I really am The King of Garbage.

Next: the flutter of excitement. That’s right, I forgot the prawn heads. Back to the kitchen, then out to the street with the frozen lump, before trundling the two bins into the street, yellow and red, big and small, standing side by side like ill-matched soldiers.

Next: the flutter of excitement. That’s right, I forgot the prawn heads. Back to the kitchen, then out to the street with the frozen lump.

What a glorious sight. Is there any rubbish at all left in the home? Not a skerrick. Some religions have purification rituals. This is mine. I feel so good.

A thought intrudes. Some people, amazingly, allow garbage day to slip their mind. Upon hearing the truck clanking down the road in the morning, they leap from bed like startled meerkats. Some haven’t thought about garbage for seven whole days. They sprint down the front path, barely clad, frantically pulling along their bin, one shoe off, one shoe on, only to see the truck is already four doors down.

Some might think that driving a garbage truck is a miserable occupation but here’s the upside: it’s a life spent being constantly chased by semi-naked householders shouting, “Stop, please come back, I need you.”

I can’t imagine missing the garbage truck in this way. Think of the sorrow that must stalk such people throughout the week ahead.

“Oh,” they’ll think to themselves, “I might spend Tuesday morning getting rid of that broken tennis racquet, as well as that soccer ball torn to shreds by the dog.” Then, like a punch to stomach, they’ll remember: “That’s right, I can’t. The bins are still full from last week.”

Never will this be my fate. In fact, my only problem is the bin sometimes feels too empty.

Have I not been assiduous enough in the task of rubbish removal? Might I be kicking myself on Saturday when I realise I forgot that broken electric jug or moth-eaten rug?

It’s now 10.30 on Thursday night. I am a man with a half-empty bin outside his house.

I prowl around Jocasta’s office. “Are you sure you need this?” I ask her, pointing in turn to the objects on her desk. She makes some sort of flimsy excuse for each – “that’s my late father’s wristwatch”; or “that was given to me by my mother upon the birth of our first child” – leaving me defeated.

I’m forced to look elsewhere. I’m happy for the bin to be half-empty but only once our house is truly rubbish-free.

What a tragedy, for example, if you took out the bins, then remembered a last item, only to find some neighbour had made use of your spare capacity.

Better, I think, to stand guard. I casually lean against a lamppost near the bins.

Jocasta stands at the front door, pulling her coat tight against the cold.

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“It’s 11 o’clock,” she says. “I think you should come inside.”

“Soon”, I say. “By midnight the danger will have passed.”

She looks down at me, her face softening. “What if I found you some more rubbish. Then you could fill up your bin and we could go to bed.”

Jocasta potters around the house and emerges with a handful of polystyrene packaging, a cracked vase and some rusty bulldog clips.

I add them to the bin. Dropped in loosely, they do a good job of filling the thing up. I go to bed happy.

Lying there, I allow myself a small smile of satisfaction. At long last, Jocasta may be starting to share my passion for garbage.