Alabama Junk Day

Some days, its good to live in Redneckia.

I don't know what they call it, but once or twice a year the city says it will haul off to the dump anything you can drag down to the street in front of your house. Maybe its got something ironic to do with Earth Day. At any rate, there are piles like this one every few houses on ever road in my neighborhood. Its like a big drive-through thrift store that encourages five-finger discounts! After work I just drove around, filling my car with other peoples discarded treasures. I filled it twice. Some highlights:

• two turn tables
• three TVs
• 5 cassette decks
• two VCRs
• three DVD players
• a guitar
• several brass lamps
• two sets of fire place tools
• toy guns
• Darth Vader mask
• old clock
• old fan
• sewing machine
• folding desk chair
• tool box full of old tools
• giant rusty old trunk
• plastic rocket sled
• ionizing air filter

So, its gonna take me a while to break it all down for parts, but its like bringing home a gold mine. I feel like this must be illegal or something in other, more progressive regions, but right now I'm happy to profit from Alabama's good ol' boy tendencies.

There is one thing about it that is still sort of appalling is just how much of this crap still works. Some of it, like the air filter, looks like its never been used. Undamaged, almost unused stuff, just tossed out to the road. No wonder out economy is fucked -- these ass holes are borrowing money to buy expensive shit they don't need and then chucking it in land fills instead of any other method (recycling, selling, donation, etc.) of getting rid of it. I mean, some of this stuff has nothing wrong with it at all other than it doesn't play Blue Rays. What, you ain't got a second TV down stairs? Maybe not, if that's where all the TVs came from.

So it was a gold mine for me, but it really started to bother me towards the end of testing as I realized just how functional most of this crap is. While picking it up I'd just assumed it was all broken and that I'd strip it for parts. Now, I'm wishing I'd picked up the remotes, I could sell this crap!