from time to time my family makes fun of me for what used to be my dream job, a garbage man. though, in order to be a garbage man i needed to drive a blue garbage truck. i remember running out to watch the garbage men take the garbage early mornings when i was a kid. they were so cool, swiftly picking up those heavy cans that my parents had to drag to the street corner. then with a press of the leaver, the all powerful garbage truck would compact the trash with amazing force. i remember watching this many times, most of the time while wearing pajamas.
then when i was in elementary school, i'd walk to school with my brother. thursday morning was trash day, and as i walked to school i'd peek into all open trash cans for any gems. i'd find all types of fun things to play with sitting in/on/next to the trash cans on the street. some of the items i remember finding were telescoping antennas, toys, deflated balls, and my biggest prize was a discarded speargun!
if the object was too big to hide in my pocket or backpack i had a special hiding place where i'd hide my morning bounty, it was atop a small hill with trees and bushes located just outside of the school grounds.
i remember my brother, who was two years younger than me, being embarrassed to walk to school with me and my buds because we were trash pickers. when is the last time you heard of the younger brother being embarrassed of the older brother during elementary school? obviously i was onto something.
today my coworkers and i are headed to SCRAP (Scroungers Center for Reusable Art Parts), we'll most likely be helping organize donations or cleaning up around the non-profit store. a few times a year we do some sort of 1/2 day volunteering, normally at a soup kitchen or food bank. this time we're going somewhere very different.
SCRAP seems like a thrift store that doesn't have the junk that i never pay attention to at thrift stores, mainly clothes. according to the yelp page and their website buttons are sold by the scoop, wood and other materials are priced at the counter with a quick eyeball of the clerk. these guys are who i would have become had my brother not been so embarrassed as to taddle-tale on me when we got home from school almost every thursday that i had been at it again, hoping that i'd somehow stop.
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