It was a beautiful fall Saturday morning and Sam was out doing what he normally did on the nicer weekend days while he was at college. Well, he was doing what he did if he wasn't at his normal job. He was making his way from place to place, first on Frat row, then touring the local student bars. Hell, no, he wasn't drinking. It was nine in the morning. He was out trying to earn another few dollars to put in his college fund. He stopped his little Ranger pickup in the alley behind the first Frat house on his route. He looked around the yard and smiled. The yard was covered with empty bottles, cans and plastic cups. Looks like I'm in luck, he thought. At least this Frat had a nice party last night from the looks of things. He hoped the rest of his stops were as messy as this one. If they were, he would have a more profitable day than normal.
Sam grabbed a couple of large black trash bags and bailed out of his truck. He quickly walked into the yard and bent to begin picking up all the empty aluminum cans. Well, he stepped on them first to flatten them so more would fit into the trash bags that way. After cleaning up the cans in the yard he checked out the trash barrels. BINGO once again! The barrels were loaded with empties. By the time he finished this house he had three large 55 gallon trash bags of smashed aluminum cans.
Sam made his way from stop to stop, frat house to frat house collecting cans as he went. After making his normal stops on campus and some of the party houses just off campus Sam went on to the student bars. He almost had his little Ranger's bed filled with bagged cans even with the cab high racks he built for it. He hit the first bar and found four more bags worth of cans even after he smashed them. Off to the second bar on his route. What the hell??? There were almost no aluminum cans in the dumpster. Had the bar owner began saving them himself? He only found about a quarter of a bag and most of those cans were filled with cigarette butts or other junk so he couldn't use them. Oh, well, on to the next bar.
Crap. This dumpster was almost empty also. Sam moved on. Shit. When he got to the next bar he saw a small body bobbing up and down in the dumpster, throwing cans out of the dumpster into the parking lot. Soon a young woman climbed out of the dumpster and walked around smashing cans then she put them into bags. After the bags were full, she stuffed them into an older car. The trunk was already full of bags full of cans and she was filling the back seat now.
Sam drove up beside her car and rolled his window down to watch her work. She looked up at him guiltily, almost as if she was scared, but continued working on the cans. Sam just watched. After she finished loading her cans she glanced at Sam once again then drove off and turned into the next bar parking lot. She immediately jumped from her car and once again dove into the dumpster.
Sam followed her into the lot and stopped once again. This time he could see the fear on her face. He got out of his truck and she stopped to watch him warily. Sam looked into her car then turned his attention to her once more. He took a deep breath and said, "So, you're the one that's been taking my cans out of the dumpsters. I thought the first bar owner had began saving them himself. Then when I got to the second one and found those cans gone also I began to wonder. You've been hitting the dumpsters off and on all semester haven't you? I've noticed sometimes there are very few cans in them when I check them."
"What do you mean your cans? I've been getting the cans from the dumpsters now for almost six months. How do you get off saying they're yours? They're just going to the dump if I don't take them and sell them."
"I suppose you're right as far as it goes. I guess they're anybodies cans if they get to them first, but I've been picking them up now since I started college almost two years ago. I sell them and use the money to help live on and pay tuition. I only usually hit the dumpsters Saturday and Sunday mornings though, because I work most evenings and Saturday afternoons."
"Oh. Well, I've been doing the same since I transferred here this fall from a community college. I got a partial scholarship and I work most Saturdays and part time during the week at the book store. I can make $40 or $50 dollars a week if I hit the dumpsters Saturday and Sunday. I bet you're why I don't find many cans some days aren't you?"
"Yeah, probably. I'm a little later today than I usually am so you beat me to it today." Sam looked over at the girl's car and said, "You're making a mess in your car with all the leaking cans. Don't you have something to at least cover the seats? I can hardly stand the stale beer smell coming from my truck bed. How do you manage to drive with the cans inside? And aren't you afraid of getting stopped and getting a ticket for all those open containers?"
"They wouldn't. They couldn't could they?"
"Yeah, they would and they could. I know a woman back home that was doing just what you are. Well, maybe not just what you are. She had her back seat filled with bags of empty beer cans and got stopped at a sobriety check point. They wrote her up and she got a hellacious fine out of it. The Judge said the law had no qualifier to excuse garbage bags full of cans. It was plainly written that ANY open alcohol container in the passenger compartment was a violation of the open container law."
"You're just bullshitting me. Aren't you?"
"Nope. Sorry. So, you go to college here, too, huh? What's your name? I'm Sam Donovan."
