Once every couple of months here in Waterloo they have a major-trash-item pick up, where you can put just about anything in front of your house and have it picked up. Old furniture, appliances, in-laws, you name it. OK – I’m exaggerating a bit: I don’t think they take appliances. But just about anything else is fair game. The pick up date is well known and, on the evening before that pick up, as most of us are just finishing carting heavy items to the sidewalk, you can see a veritable caravan of junk-seekers, lurking in wait to prove the adage that one man’s trash is another man’s garbage. The stuff isn’t even allowed to get cold before someone in a van or pick-up drives by and whisks it away. The trash company must love this arrangement, as do these intrepid scavengers, these Kings of Crap, Regents of Refuse, Gods of Garbage. It makes me wax poetic, just thinking about it. Sad, isn’t it? In any case – true story here – last time we had the pick up there was a fellow in our front yard just after dark, his car engine running, with a spelunker-type hard hat with built-in flashlight, scavenging through our old bed frames, and other objets d’junk, searching for that elusive pot of gold, or maybe just a piece of scrap metal that could be resold for a Euro or two.
But getting back to the Europe on Zero Dollars a Day, we have noticed several neighbors pitching what appear to be quite serviceable mattresses on the Day O’Trash. So, once again, please picture yourself something of a derelict. You walk through any Belgian neighborhood on the “right” night, find yourself a dream mattress, carry it off to a highway underpass (preferably near a Carrefour) and you have now perfected the ultimate European Vacation – lodging for nada!
Let the tourists spend their inheritance on gold faucets and embossed terry robes. We’ve just shown you how to have it all here in Europe, without need of a wallet. Or kitchen. Or house. Heaven help us is our government reads this blog; our monthly stipend will be slashed!
