So I stopped

So I stopped by the hardware store to pick up some rat poison to clear out the garage on my way home from work last night. I also spent a few hours cleaning out said garage, getting rid of some garbage and whatnot. Here's something that fascinates me about this fair city.

I grew up in the country. When I wanted to throw something away, I put it at the end of my driveway. But the big stuff, my dad and I would leave in the garage until we had a truckload of it. Then we'd load up the truck and head to the dump. It took a few hours when all was said and done, and I managed to get pretty rank and dirty in the process. It wasn't a whole lot of fun. But in Peoria, for the big stuff, all you have to do is put it in an alley and someone will take it away. Not a trash man, a "scrapper". Scrappers hunt for heavy pieces of recyclable garbage to collect on, or valuable garbage to pawn, or broken garbage to fix and sell (I know this because I work with a guy who has a buddy who is a scrapper and makes a pretty decent living at it. Not a millionaire, but probably more than working at McDonalds or something). Last night I put out a dish washer, microwave, fan, satellite dish, coffee table, and printer for the scrappers to do whatever they needed to do with. Within HOURS, the dish washer was gone. By the time I went to bed, everything but the coffee table was gone. This morning, all the trash, including the coffee table, was gone. I suspect the real garbage men took the coffee table, but still. I've always known about the scrappers and even "used their services" when I had a couch to get rid of, but will need to keep them in mind for the future. It's a good way to get rid of stuff without having to do virtually any work. Thank you, scrappers.

Anyway, Jaimee and I also stopped by Big Lots for random stuff and Kinko's for boxes. Tonight I finish cleaning the garage. Yes, it was a 2 day affair. It was messy in there. My goal is to clear out the whole garage to give Jaimee half of it in the moving process and the other half could actually hold my car. That would be nice.