Update on can runs

I had a shocker...my in-laws took the kids camping during Spring Break. My husband took a look at the calendar, said, "Wait a minute: it's their anniversary! What do they want?" I'm glad he said it, and not me...he would have accused me of ascribing ulterior motives that weren't there....but anyway, with the kids away, I got to go on "can runs" with hubby.

Let me describe a can run for you. We get in our best mileage car...that would be our beater Metro. It's low to the ground, and gets 30 MPG. Wouldn't do much good to get in a car that burns gas. We go the streets that don't get much traffic and look for ANYTHING metal. Aluminum is the best, as in soda/beer cans. But tire weights bring good money, too. Appliances left for the garbage man can be scrapped out. We line the back seat with plastic bins and put a small one between my feet. We separate as we go. We wear gloves. We call cans that are already squashed street pizzas. Yes, we pick those up, too. My husband has a good eye for those, I'm not so good at that. If it's a big pile of trash at the curb, we go up and ask the house if we can have it.

This week, we got brass curtain rods, 2 vacuum cleaners, a plasma TV, a regular TV, construction brass fittings, a dust buster, and I don't even know how many cans. We try to map out where we're going, but sometimes opportunity knocks and changes our plans. When we come home, we scrap out what we found. You have to be real careful with TV's. My husband knows more about doing that because he's the electrician. I let him do that. I tweaked in the Navy (meaning I did screws and little things like that) so I take apart things that have no chance of doing any harm. You would be amazed what is inside a motor. Copper wire is the most money when you turn it in. He has buckets for the different metals. I'm not really up on all that. I hand it to him and he sorts it. If a magnet will cling to it, it goes in a different one. I know it takes a lot of scrap steel to make any money, but it adds up. We found a scrap piece of car at a wreck site. Apparently the police didn't feel like cleaning up the wreckage. We did. We're doing a service to the community, too. We also got a trashed bar-b-que pit....cast aluminum. Some kind of burner that was also cast aluminum. And a file cabinet that had brass fittings.

Once, while out, we found a pile of bullets. Scared my husband to death. He called it in. My son was with him. He waited for the police to show up. He knew they were simulated rounds, you can tell because they have plastic tips, but he was afraid someone was doing something they ought not to do. Being a good citizen, he wanted to report it. Turns out, they had a SWAT practice area there. The police gave us permission to pick up whatever we found in the area. Cool. Brass is brass.

I sometimes feel like people look on this as redneck, but in today's society, every little bit helps. This is sending my son to camp.

While we were out, someone had thrown out a box of glasses and mugs. It's amazing what people throw out. We took it in. I'm not going to resell it, though, I'm keeping them. I collect Fire King, and really any other ovenware. It had 2 Glassbake mugs in it, one white and one pink. If the person who put it on the curb would happen to read this blog by chance, thank you. You made someone very happy. It had a Navy mug, from the USS Chicago....we're both Navy....though it has a name on it. It had 2 steins with ships on it. It had 2 Dallas Cowboy steins...those will be birthday presents for my Father in law...regifting is great. It also had a couple juice glasses....you can never have enough juice glasses with kids. And lastly a root beer mug that matches a couple I already have. What a treasure find. Sometimes God leads you down just the right street.

Now the scrapping out begins. We're gonna try to get everything scrapped out by Friday so he can take it down to recycle and see what we got in cash for our haul.