I looked like a life-size Barbie standing in the middle of Tonka Town amid groaning machines, dust whirling and noise sounding like jets crashing together.
I fantasize being the “Proverbs 31″ woman; what I can”t do in sewing and early rising, I hope to make up in resourcefulness. I committed to saving aluminum cans and selling them. Sam wasn”t hot to trot on the idea: “Do you know how many cans you”d have to have to make it worth it?”
I didn”t care. I became compulsive to the point of pilfering home garbage and bringing cans home from work. Finding a place to sell my cans wasn”t easy; then I found Sims Metal Management, right here in the Prairie, barely into West Point, down Churchill Road. I called, and a perky voice answered. “I”d like to sell some cans. Is there anything special that I need to know?”
The perky voice said, “Nothing special. We pay 70 cents a pound.” Then she told me exactly where Sims was.
The next day I hosed off some of the sticky cans. The next day I bagged them into a 33 gallon bag. Some of the cans were in smaller bags. I hesitated for a minute but thought, Oh, what the hay, and left them doubled bagged.
The next day I headed to Sims. I followed large dump trucks and smaller trucks with trailer loads of appliances, 55 gallon drums, pipes, wrecked cars and cans. They were lining up at scales that looked like a bridge to nowhere. Foreign signs were posted like, “Customers must have a cone.”
I zipped around to the office where I talked to the perky little voice, Jasmine, through a glass window. Grinning the whole time she explained, “Put this cone on top of your car; go over or around the scales to the back where it says ”Cans.””
“On top of my car? Could you repeat that?”
This was a whole new world of monster dumpsters, and I wanted to do it right, except for the cone part. I didn”t want to be chasing my cone around between Tonka trucks, so I gripped it safely in my hand.
At the back I found myself in a hard hat-, steel toe-area; a bit overdressed in my strappy sandals and blingy blouse.
The man ahead of me was shoveling cans from his trailer into a big metal box where the cans were crunched, then rapid-fired into a cage. It was amazing. All the guys nodded respectfully as they did their jobs. I wondered about ear plugs.
My turn came. I noticed the man at the top of the box had to pull my Dollar General bags out of the mix. Then I watched my bright red Coke cans blown over the beer cans like cherries on a sundae.
I got home and told Sam about my adventure. He said, “You just had fun.”
“Yeah, I did,” I said, “and got $5 doing it.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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