It is the end of the semester here, the tests are over, the shit is done and now I am packing to go home. To burn some stress, my roommate and I have indulged in chaos and also caused some of our own.
On Monday, there were some candles lit in bags for a mile around the university. A months ago, I had found a giant PVC pipe candy cane in a dumpster and left in my roommates car until I found a use for it. Suddenly I had an idea.
Yes, Kyle drove down this stretch of road and I leaned out the window with my giant candy cane and bashed every single candle I could, leaving a trail of hot wax and torn paper bags. We laughed until we cried.
That's the magic of dumpster diving. You find incredibly useless shit, but if you're openminded, you can find a use for anything. So since this is the end of the semester and since many people are leaving for the semester or for good a lot of useless shit was thrown out. Kyle and I drove around and took as much as we could.
Here is a short list of what we found:
a hooded vest (I don't understand it)
biodegradable tampons (not just any tampons, mind you! These make mother nature proud!)
Vans skates shoes, mint condition (gave to Kyle, they were his size)
First Aid kit (very old)
design DVD
sunglasses
a nice thin jacket from Target, great condition
skirts for an anorexic girl
a nightie
a Target shopping basket
an exit sign
a Renaissance costume w/ shoes and a tiara
prescription eczema shampoo
a Bible
a baseball bat
a pro-life v. pro-choice poster
We divided up the goods among us, threw away the useless crap (such as opened food) that somehow got inside our finds and donated the rest. We found a use (or will) for everything most people found useless.
Each dumpster we visited made me more disgusted with this campus. At one dumpster, we found an entire slab of ground beef with a $9.19 pricetag. I found an entire waredrobe worth of Abercrombie and Fitch clothes, which is inexcusable. In each dorm there is a box for people to donate clothes to the homeless. If you're going to spend $60 dollars on a t-shirt, not to mention a boring t-shirt that makes you look like a preppy douchebag you should at least have the decency to give it to a needy family or shivering homeless person. I was seriously mad, very mad that someone would do that.
But then I remembered the discarded Bible, brand new, barely even cracked open. I wonder why that didn't upset me so much. I have plans for it, I guess, I'll give it to someone because it's very nice and it's small. Still, maybe I need my priorities straight.
We were taking in our fruits, our arms full.
"You better hold that bag better," I said. "Or those tampons are gonna spill out and someone's gonna say, what the fuck."
He laughed, but ignored my advice. Sure enough, when we reached the door the bag split open right in front of several guys.
"Hey," one asked. "Why do you have a baseball bat?"
"Um," I said. "I found it."
"No, dude," another said. "What I want to know is why do you have tampons?"
We laughed, but couldn't think of anything to say.
"Hey, one of you," Kyle said. "Say what the fuck."
"What the fuck."
"Awesome."
As I was taking out my own trash an hour later, some punk rockers came up to the dumpster with flashlights. We talked about dumpster diving, one of the three dudes was from the local band the F-Holes. "Yeah, we were just doing that."
I watched as they went through the shit I tossed out, including an old photograph and some papers that said "Deface please".
One of the guys held up the photo and said, "Dude, how could you miss this?"
The irony was killing me, so I said nothing.
"I'm gonna take this home and frame it!"
"And look at this! Some papers that say 'Deface Please'. What does that mean?"
"Dude, it's poetry."
I smiled, still silent. It was an awesome night.
You can watch the terrible video I made of the candy cane v. the candles here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSWWakfZXOU
