Trash talkin'

I gotta let you guys in on a dirty little secret. I'm sitting on a couch taken from the trash. A week back, the guys (meaning me, my roommates and the guys in the nearby room) picked up a huge haul of furniture from the trash.

Now before you pop your eyes out, let me explain. In America, the cost to transport a piece of furniture is about 70% of the cost of buying a brand new one. Especially if it is defective, people don't care about fixing broken things. So, they leave it outside the smelly trash bin. Right outside it actually. It is generally very clean.

Here's where the student community, the heroes of the apartment complex, come in. The paupers that we are, we go and do a "1,2,3.. lift.. hai-saaa". I don't know if I spelt "hai-saa" correctly. Maybe it is "hail-a-saa" or "ai-la-saa". I meant to say what Prabhu Deva says in that 'Sooriyan' movie (Lalakku dol dappi maa song). You get the picture. So, we scavenge on great things like tables, lamps, chairs, couches, door mats etc. Most of these scavenged items are in pretty good condition except a scratch or two.

Our main competition is homeless people. These guys (and gals I must add, for I don't want to be painted a sexist) are amazing. They have bicycles which have a small trailer box attached to them. They come to our apartment complex in the night with a small bulb on their cap, look through the trash and collect all plastics and other things that can be pulled with the help of a cycle. In America, any job is a job. People do it religiously without grudges. That's a small thing I've learned in my short stint here.

The house is now full with good furniture, obtained for free thanks to people trashing repairable things. Long live Trash! Long live scavengers!

P.S : We once got a TV and vaccum cleaner from the trash. The TV didn't work, it was broken into half. The vaccum cleaner was blowing air out, the opposite of what a vaccum cleaner must do. Well, not all things you pick up from the trash work. Its a science. I must publish a paper on the theory of picking good stuff from the trash with an optimal rate of success. I shall save it for future generation of scavengers to admire this art, naay, science of "Trash Scavenging"