Monday, July 14, 2008

There's Nothing Like the Smell of a Dumpster in the Morning

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Since our big move is coming up, I have been scouring the city for moving boxes. U-Haul charges big bucks for theirs, craigslist posters demand $1 per box, and Wal-Mart insists the only way to get your hands on their boxes is to come between midnight and 1 a.m. So, I have taken to Dumpster diving. I've fished piles of boxes out of a Dumpster behind Old Country Buffet - I've found some good ones, but they're usually a bit dirty and smelly (kind of like the restaurant - ha ha). So, in hopes of some cleaner boxes, I drove around a strip mall that's down the street from my house. Guess what I found in the Dumpster behind Half-Price Books? Well, I did discover a couple of good boxes, but I also found a pile of books! Not old, dingy paperbacks either, but like-new trade paperbacks. Being the book lover I am, I really wanted to scoop them all up and drop them off at places where they would get some love (like the library, which is begging for book donations). It felt criminal to rescue only one book - Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True - but I was too scared to grab more (because you know stores always have security cameras watching over their precious garbage). As it was, I hid my stolen novel underneath some boxes just in case.

I know Half-Price Books isn't unique in throwing away "old" books - Sam Houston posted this article not too long ago about Barnes & Noble. These books weren't deliberately destroyed like the ones at B& N; still, when there is a library a couple miles down the road with posters in every window asking for books, you just have to wonder.


  1. Books in the trash? Oh, no. I'm sure there is a better place for them than that. You picked up a good one, though, this book got me through being stuck someplace for days during a blizzard. Literally! Enjoy it.

  2. I Know This Much Is True is probably my favorite book of all time.

    Good luck on finding more boxes!

  3. That is so sad. All those poor books without homes! People actually get in trouble for picking up thrown away books? Is it stealing when someone has already thrown it out? That doesn't make sense to me. Anyhow, I am glad you were able to pick up a copy of I Know This Much Is True. It's a good one!

  4. Wow, what I wouldn't give to come across a pile of books like that! I may just have to go hunting behind the local bookstores! LOL :P

    I probably would've been worse than you, and I'd have grabbed a bunch. I mean, if they're in the trash, then I don't think it's technically "stealing".

    I'm a 'scavenger'... I got both a very nice wooden coffee-table, and an awesome (really good condition) oak dining table, just because people had put these things out at the road for the trash! The coffee table had just a wobbly leg (took 2 minutes to fix it), and the dining table had NOTHING wrong with it (friends of mine had put it out at the road, so I asked, and they only got rid of it because they got a new table!) :)

    Books would be a MUCH better find, mind you, but hey... whatever you can get for free, right?

    PS... I saw you're currently reading Robyn Carr's "Just Over the Mountain"... great series!

  5. I'm glad I grabbed a good book out of the heap. There weren't any others I recognized, but I didn't dig very deep. If books are in the trash, I'm guessing it's not technically stealing, but I sure felt like a criminal skulking around behind closed stores! I guess you can tell that I'm not a very daring person :)




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