Dumpster Diving

                The beginning, the commencement, the inauguration—this is the launch of our random, capricious summer.  Get excited!  The founders, or head honchos of Our Latest Hiatus have decided to rotate writers.  So, to follow seniority you all get to read me, Caleb, first.  This is your chance to politely exit the blog now until Katie and Lauren’s wit arrive on the scene.

As the three of us decided how to kick-start these three months of adventures, we thought what better way to get it started than to go dumpster diving.  It would capture the erratic nature of the blog, and we would get some free stuff along the way.  So, without further adieux, the chronicle of our first escapade—dumpster diving.

There was a chill in the air, a sense of excitement.  Before we left that late Saturday evening, I asked Katie if she was nervous and she simply echoed my sentiments with a transparent, “Yes...”  The thoughts of scary homeless men with knives and ravenous varmints filled our minds.  However, we mustered up the courage and left our fears at the door.  The girls geared up and I adorned myself with my mom’s red bandana and we set off into the dark, Knoxville night.

Some friends of mine had heard about what we were doing so they met us at our first stop, West Town Mall.  The evening started off slow; however, our fortunes soon changed and simple garbage was replaced with lavish garbage.  As shown in the video, our treasures included a Wet Seal sweater and a Dairy Queen sweatshirt.  Needless to say, the mood was very jubilant!  That is, until it happened.  The six of us were driving to our next dumpster, when we noticed someone following us—a mall cop.  He pulled us over and told us that a “report had been filed” with the following three violations:  number 1, dumpster diving is illegal in Tennessee; number 2, video-taping on mall property is illegal; and number 3, well that deserves its own, few sentences.  One of my friends, Brett, had decided to bring a machete with him.  I’m not sure whether he brought this to simply open up trash bags or to fulfill a sense of manly, heroism—personally, I’m leaning towards the latter.  At any rate, bringing a machete was our third violation.  With such a steep record of transgressions, including the public use of a two foot razor sharp weapon, I thought we might have gotten into more trouble, but the security guard was gracious and just asked us to leave. 

So, we left—to Krispy Kreme.  I’m not sure whether continuing this adventure was the correct thing to do, but because of the security guard’s unofficial authority and our strong belief that dumpster diving is legal (we actually checked later that night to make sure and found out it is ok), we moved our exploit to Krispy Kreme.  There we found a whole bag of perfectly delectable, scrumptious donuts.  I felt like a king coming home from a victorious war, reveling in his spoil.  It was a good night, and I fully expect to enjoy this evening again—maybe just not at West Town Mall.

Here's a video of our experience if you want to check it out: 

Next up on the blog, spending a day in a small town we've never been before.  Stay tuned...