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I don't remember when the dump became so cool for us as kids, but the mere mention of it would send goosebumps up and down my spine. My brother and I thought it was the coolest place ever and we always came home with something.
With this in mind, I was taken aback when my son's told me this past weekend that they didn't want to go. What was wrong with them? Did they not know of the hidden treasures one could find?
"It's disgusting dad."
"Yeah, and it smells really bad."
Finally I was able to convince Max, with a little bribery, that he should go. And off we went.
The car slowly crawled up the highway with a heap of stuff so poorly tied down it was a miracle that we only lost one piece of wood, which was at the entrance to the mecca. "You lost something", the gatekeeper said, "but I'll pick it up for you."
There are so many signs and arrows, I needed a GPS to tell me which direction to head. There was a time you could just dump the contents of your haul into one big pile, now it needs to be separated and placed in the right spot, lest a "dump worker" will address you.
I barely escaped this fate when one such worker asked me about the roll of wire I brought. Forgetting about it, I almost took it to the wrong place, but he was good enough to redirect me. The guy next to me at the junk pile wasn't so lucky. He haphazardly discarded a baby stroller, which of course contained metal. A big no-no. When I saw the dump worker coming our way I thought he was going to bust me for the case of oil I deposited, but he had bigger fish to fry. I didn't stick around for the outcome. The two men were looking down at the old blue Chicco stroller (not a bad model but a bit outdated) as Max and I took off in a cloud of dust.
"It really didn't smell too bad today", Max said, gazing out the open window.