Do You Believe in the Wastebasket Fairy?

Wastebasket

I believe fairies exist.  Or brownies, or some other of their kin.  And I think I have proof.

You see, I work in an office building, with your typical cube setup, and with typical office regularity, the bathrooms get cleaned, the recycling gets removed, and the wastebaskets get emptied.  I'm sure of the first of these because I can hear the cleaning lady knock on the men's room door and ask "Anybody in there?" 2-3 times a day.  The big paper recycling bins make a lot of noise when the burly recycling guys roll them down the hall, making it hard to miss when they're hauling them away.  However, as for the wastebaskets being emptied...well, I KNOW it happens, but I have just never SEEN it happen.

This wouldn't be so unnerving if I simply came in to a clean wastebasket every morning - I'd have to assume that the cleaning staff came by every night after everyone left and emptied the trash.  But it doesn't happen that way.  Instead, some days the wastebasket will be empty when I come in to work in the morning.  On other days, it still retains yesterday's refuse when I arrive.  But almost always, sometime during the day (but never while I'm at my desk!) the wastebaskets are emptied and a fresh plastic liner fitted in place of the old one. 

Again, I'd attribute this to a polite facilities crew, except I NEVER SEE ANYONE walking around the building with anything that they could be dumping my wastebasket into.  I don't work a regular schedule where I leave my desk every day from 10:15-10:30 (or the like), and don't see how I wouldn't, at least once, catch a cleaning person lying in wait for me to leave, if they really were trying to avoid interrupting my work.

My only explanation?  The little folk.  Only they could be deft enough to take care of the trash duty right under my nose, or in the few moments I step away from my desk to grab another cup of coffee from the break room.  I'd never see them if they didn't want to be seen.  It really is the only explanation.

My hypothesis seems to be backed up by the fact that when emptied, the wastebasket is never placed back where it was previously sitting.  Sometimes it is left behind my desk, sometimes next to it, and once, it was even left underneath my desk.  I'm not sure, but I really doubt that the cleaning crew has a playful enough nature here at the office to want to do such a thing every day for months on end.

Regardless, my wastebasket fairy always does a top-notch job and never misses picking up any scrap of paper that might have missed the bin.  I'm highly appreciative, but have never been able to show it.  So this weekend, I think I'll leave out a saucer of milk.  You know....just in case.