Dumpster Diving

I’m a trash picker from way back.

My mother was always out to get a good bargain. As well as being a thrift shop habitué, she wasn’t above rooting through people’s trash if she saw something interesting. One time when I was a kid, we’d just left my aunt’s house, when my mother spotted an old upholstered chair in the neighbor’s trash. She had my father to stop the car and grab it. Though the upholstery was torn, she saw possibilities, and ended up having it reupholstered. The chair still is in the family, now in my brother’s home.

By the time I headed off to college, I’d learned that people throw away all sorts of useful items, some nearly new. I regularly checked the dumpsters around my apartment complex, as the population was highly transient. I’d put on a pair of my rattiest jeans when going “dumpster diving” and climb right in….I didn’t care what other people might think.

Many students moving out ditched a lot of good stuff, so they’d not have to bother with moving it. I ended up with lots of clothes, usually neatly bagged so that other trash wouldn’t foul it, plates, silverware, a couch, and some chairs.

A few years later, when living in Texas, I regularly went dumpster diving with a lover, who knew all the “good dumpsters” in town, usually in affluent neighborhoods. We usually checked the Salvation Army and Goodwill drop boxes as well, because the law stated that items placed around the box, but not inside, were fair game. We’d regularly come home with a good haul, either to keep or to sell at the flea market.

I’ve not done any trash picking in years, but when I was out he other night, I kept passing this house that had several pieces of furniture put out for the trash. I was especially interested in a bookcase and a couple of kitchen chairs. I wasn't able to stop then, but made plans to come pick it up later. Unfortunately, once I returned, someone else had already gotten to it.

Damn.