This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Dumpster Diving with Grandma

Yes, that a picture of my Mom wearing a costume she made out of recycled newspaper. At least she's not trying to blow anything up....

A couple of years ago, we put my son on a plane as an unaccompanied minor and sent him on his way to visit my parents during fall break.  He was very proud of being a solo traveler, and excited about spending a week without his little sister or his parents with their stupid RULES, and being spoiled out of his mind by his grandparents -- including an incredibly energetic grandmother we often refer to as the 'cruise director' because she wants to make sure there is an activity planned for every waking minute. 

He called home every night, excitedly relaying his adventures, and the second night he was especially pumped.  In a tone of voice you'd expect him to reserve for saying something like, "Grandma bought me a pony," he said, "Guess what me and Grandma did?  We went dumpster diving!  It was so much fun!"  It is difficult to describe the hundreds of things that flew into my head at that moment, and the number of reactions I managed to suppress, before finally eking out a less than enthusiastic, "Great!"

My mother, you see, is the queen of recycling.  The trendier term for it is 'upcycling', but my mother, who is unaware of what is trendy, doesn't call it that.  I'm talking about purses and belts and other incidentals made out of pop can tops, folded up chip bags, and beads made out of strips of colorful magazines.  They are actually very cute, and I see things like it sold in stores for ridiculous amounts of money.  My mother hesitates before throwing anything out -- or even throwing it in the recycling bin, because her crafty-senses immediately consider what could be made out of an egg carton, shoe box, or scrap of wrapping paper or ribbon.  Naturally, this drives my father nuts, but since it gives her something to do without involving him, he lets it be.  Occasionally, he trots out one of his favorite jokes: "How about I give you some steel wool, and you can knit me a Buick?" 

Find out what's happening in Loganville-Graysonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

I wish I could say my mother was an outlier in my family, but no, my poor children are getting this trend from both sides.  My husband is a dumpster diver, though he isn't as proud of it as my mother, and doesn't own it like she does.  One time, we were leaving Tractor Supply Co., and in the trash can outside the store was a pair of big rubber boots.  Obviously, someone had gone in to Tractor Supply wearing them, bought new ones, and threw the old ones in the trash.  Somehow, these boots called to Mike.  "Save me!"  They yelled.  "We're not totally useless, just a little worn!  We don’t deserve eternity in a landfill!" and he heeded their siren call and pulled them out of the trash can.  I freaked, just a little.  I told him that there was no way I was going to let him wear trash can boots from outside of Tractor Supply, even if they were his size, and even if they didn't have any visible holes in them.  We argued about this for an embarrassingly long time and, I am proud to say, I eventually won.

The other day we went to the community dumpster to take out the trash.  In Morgan County there is no trash pick up, and you have to tote it to the huge dumpsters provided by the County.   I have to point out that it was my husband's birthday, and we were on our way to lunch to celebrate, so I was slightly more inclined to indulge him than I might otherwise be.  He got the trash out of the trunk, threw it in the dumpster, and got back in the car to drive over to the recycling bins.  He spoke, in those few seconds, rather reverently about a toaster oven he saw in the dumpster which "looked cleaner than ours."  He wanted that toaster oven.  He wanted it bad.  I told him there was no way I was ever going to cook food I was going to eat in something that came out of a dumpster.  Oh, but it turns out, he did not want it to cook food.  Somehow, in the 45 seconds between glimpsing the toaster oven and this point in our conversation, his 11 year old brain (stuck in a body old enough to collect a pension) came up with the following plan:  he didn't want to use it to toast things.  No, he wanted to fill a small bottle, like a water bottle, with some gasoline, and set it out on the dock, and turn it on until the gas heated up enough to explode.  Yes, he wanted to explode the dumpster toaster.  "But," he said, thinking about it for a moment, "You'd probably lose an extension cord."  My nine year old daughter, who apparently has more practical sense than her father then piped up, "You'd probably lose a HOUSE." 

Find out what's happening in Loganville-Graysonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Or," he said, "I could put it out on that old float that has a leak and send it out on the lake and plug it in and see what happens.  I could use that extension cord you cut through with the hedge trimmers that time so we wouldn't mind losing it."

I am proud to say that I won that battle as well, and nothing was blown up or electrocuted in our house.  When I told him I was going to write this post, however, he got a very sad look on his face and told me how sorry he was that he didn't get the toaster, and that I shouldn't bring up sore subjects.  He also pointed out that we would probably only have lost half an extension cord.

Lord, save us from the idle minds of retired people.  Or maybe just the retired people in my family.  Either way.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Loganville-Grayson