Who moved my trash can? (And other absurdities that cost me a Euro)

Really?  Do they think this is going to resolve the trash problem?  Simply remove the recycling bins and trash cans from their location?   This is how it goes around here.  About monthly, when I go out to do a trash run, the cans that I have adopted for myself get moved.  I am unsure what the point is-- life is already pretty tough here, so why add yet another complexity?  Drive around looking for another potential can?  Really?

Here's my real beef.  I am not one to choose a can lightly.
1.  There needs to be a big pullout.  I drive a small to midsize SUV, which is like driving a dump truck around here.  I need space to pull over and do my business.
2.  It needs to be low-traffic.  I am not interested in the headline "Stupid American killed by vehicle while bolting across street with big black trash bag."
3.  It needs to have no "attendant." In the long line of people creating jobs for themselves in this country is the "trash guy", who will (for a euro coin) take the trash bags out of the back of your vehicle and put them in the dumpsters for you.  While this does aid in the prevention of aforementioned "Stupid American killed" incident, I still get a little tweaked over spending money for this service when I still had to bag it, heave it to my car, drive it in all its' diaper stinking glory to said trash cans, and park without being killed.

Oh, and while we are on the topic (sort of) of people who have created themselves jobs, most prominently we should discuss the "White Cap."  Though I have yet to see a white cap on a single one of them, these are the parking lot attendants who will (for a earo coin) "watch" your vehicle for you while you are in the store. (cafe, restaurant, etc)  In some instances where there are very crowded parking lots and significant traffic, their help can be immeasurable.  They can guide you into the tiniest of parking spaces, come inside the shop and let you know if your car needs to be moved to allow another patrons' car to exit, stop traffic and allow you to back out of the lot and safely back onto the street AND keep an eye out for window-smashing lowlifes.  In most instances, however, it is simply a way for you to emerge from the shop a euro coin lighter than you were before entering the shop.  I've paid a white cap only to come out of the restaurant to find he had vanished.  I wonder how he was watching my car for me?  Tip:  When approached, say "Pago quando parto" (I pay when I leave)

Another example of euro-absurdity comes from shopping carts.  Here in Italy (and I imagine in many other places in Europe) they have created a method to manage the shopping cart craziness that exists in the U.S.  Whereas in the U.S., you can get a shopping cart in the store, buy your goods, take the cart to your car, abandon it, and drive away-- this is not possible in Italy.  Here, you are required to insert a Euro coin to obtain your cart, and must return the cart to the location to have the coin returned to you.  $1.25?  I'll walk across the parking lot for that.  Seems fabulous, yes?  If you have ever had to "bus" shopping carts in a grocery store parking lot, I am sure you would say a hearty YES! You'd be wrong.  There are SO many ways that this practice goes awry.
1.  Gypsies.  They stalk you in the parking lot and stand unnervingly close as you try to balance a baby on one hip and groceries on the other so that neither is unattended even for a moment while you pack the car.  They are going to take the cart?  OK.  $1.25 is a pretty low price in that situation.
2.  Entropy:  You know, that definition from physics you forgot about?  One of the ideas involved in the concept is that nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems.  Or, in shorthand-- the shopping carts get all schlumbungled  and hooked together wrong, and have their little coin deeleys filled with toothpicks and bubblegum and you can't for the life of yourself end up with both a cart and a coin at the end of it all.  It makes the "cart with a sticky wheel" seem so....charming.
3.  Kids.  Despite my Herculean efforts to never allow the children to escape the compound, sometimes...i...have...to...take..them...shopping...  The whole shopping cart thing becomes a colossal conundrum (as do so many other things, yet I digress) when you add kids.  After disgorging the groceries from the shopping cart into the back of the ole SUV, you have two choices:  A.  Put the kids in the car, seat belts on, and run like a she-flame across the parking lot to replace the shopping cart, hoping without hope that you are not struck by shopping cart entropy on this visit and that the kids don't remove their seat belts, put the car in neutral, and start rolling away.   Or B.  Leave kids in the shopping cart, remove them so you can get the cart in the lineup, and then attempt to keep kids from being run over while you mediate a battle between the two of them over who gets to pull out the coin.
4.  The Navy.  Sigh.  Because this whole shopping cart consternation isn't confusing and painful enough, enter the Navy.  On our base, they have (2) different SIZES of shopping cart.  The two don't stack inside one another correctly and therefore people try fun things like turning them upside down and sideways to try to hook them together.  Ultimately it is such a cluster that I just mentally add $1.25 onto my shopping bill and leave the darn things in the parking lot.