Dumpster Diving

To this day, I don't like drinking out of plastic, and I think it stems from all the "recycling" from my formative years. The whole family would be out at the lake, and even though hundreds of other people had pushed aside or navigated around the various floating objects, my father always fished them out and brought them home--or worse, made me do it. I think all of the cups in the cabinet had once been floating downstream. There was no amount of washing that could ever make me completely at ease with the scary 32 ounce Big Gulp cup with the slightly gnawed rim. I also had to share underwear with my sisters, so I stopped wearing it altogether. But the worst thing was when someone would have lawn furniture in their yard that was just a little too close to the curb. My father would slow the car down and tell us to jump out and grab this chair or that table. I was always scared that the people weren't really getting rid of these perfectly nice items, and that they would stop me with violence once I set foot on their yard. But that never happened. Instead, we collected other people's discarded or unguarded items until the house was brimming with swag. It is amazing what people will throw away, though I am still not completely convinced that the plastic table with the umbrella stand and the matching chairs was being thrown out by that affluent Texas family.