More on my dumpster diving....
I probably own more ribbon than anyone else here, maybe anyone else alive. And its why my wife keeps me around these days.
It all started about 10 or so years ago when we shut down a gift shop wholesale division of our company. We supplied hotel and resort gift shops with essentials. We always had the newest and best candies, but we also provided them with things like wrapping paper and ribbon. So one Friday the order was given to fill the partially empty dumpster with the entire stock of ribbon. I intervened. Dumpsters are expensive to have taken away. Instead I just had the pallets full located out in the fenced yard area late Friday.
First thing Saturday morning, Momma and I appeared at work, along with my oldest and his mini-van. We filled Momma's station wagon to the brim and my son's mini-van. Then we went home and unloaded the van. We left Momma at home to empty the wagon while we went back for all the left overs.
You know, when your wife picks up a spool of ribbon around Christmas, she gets a 10 yard spool? Maybe she even splurges and buys 2 of them. We have cases full of 1000 meter spools. Some fancy, some plain. I have enough ribbon to go from my home to the west coast and back. Easy.
When my youngest was running Cross Country in high school, the team needed refreshments. Other schools would buy the Kool-Aid like pouches and stir the stuff up in construction coolers. Kids hated it. But my son's team always had bottles of GatorAid. All flavors. The only problem was some of them were a tad shop worn, as in the labels water bleached or completely missing. When some yokel in the grocery warehouse would smash a case, anywhere from 1 to all of the bottles might break. In turn that would melt the cardboard and the cases on the pallet below might also tumble. Didn't matter, it became unsalable.
So we did what all wholesales do. We segregated it until a factory rep gave us credit, then tossed it in the dumpster. Back in the early 1990s I had one of the first Chevy 454 SS pickups. I'd just pull the truck around back at quitting time and fill it level with sticky and dripping cases of the stuff. Then I'd call home and tell my wife to get ready.
We had a system. We'd soak the unbroken bottles in 5 gallon mud buckets until the glass shards were soaked free, then rinse them and rebox them for the next CC meet.
One day we took back for credit most of a box of Maker's Mark cigars. You know, the ones that retail for $20-25 each? The Tobacco rep wanted to see them thrown in the dumpster. In they went. Our route boss (the guy who manages the fleet) went in head first after them when the Rep left. Our diver was probably 6' tall, but easily 300#. He was in there for a while, thrashing and bellowing. I was afraid I'd need to call the life squad to extract him. He finally came out with the 13 cigars he could find. Only one had a cracked glass tube, but he kept it.
I work and live around folks who don't have misguided pride. Just no room for it. Free is good.
