Dumpster Diving

flashback

I'm about 10. My two sisters and I have just finished helping my parents set up the tent, which means we're free to take the bikes off the rack and "stake out the territory." First stop, all bodies of water in the vicinity. Next stop, the camp store.

I spotted it near the back, leaning against the campfire pie molds. A child's bamboo fishing pole, complete with plastic bobber and fish gutter. No reel. Just a put-it-together-and-drop-in-the-creek sort of a pole. Three dollars and sixty cents, which was exactly three dollars and sixty cents more than I had.

On the bike ride back to the site, I plotted. Then I pitched. (Not the tent. That was already up, remember?)

Me: I found something I want at the camp store.
Dad: What is it?
Me: A fishing pole.
Dad: You can use mine.
Me: No. I want my own.
Dad: Need some money?
Me: No. Mind if I go for a bit?
Dad: That's fine. Can you be back in two hours?
Me: (Running the numbers. Thirty-six cans divided my three girls, only one of whom is wholly invested in seeing the stunt through.) Yes.
Dad: Go ahead.

Then I had to pitch it to my sisters. Lilu was almost thirteen (tricky). Jaime Lynn, almost eight (Like shooting fish in a barrel).

Me: (to Lilu) Wanna?
Her: (brushing hair or something of the kind) No.
Me: Did you see the guy working the counter at the camp store?
Her: (putting down brush) Yeah.
Me: It involves two trips to the camp store. And you can hand him the bottles. Some of them beer. You'll look way old.
Her: (dropping brush and hopping on bike) Coming?

Me: (to Jaime Lynn) Wanna?
Her: Yep.



(Cutting to the retelling, from my father's POV, the next day, and for years to come.)

Dad: Her mother and I were driving back into the campground and approaching the row of dumpsters. We saw a bike leaned up against the side of one of them, and two children hoisting another one over the edge, until everything disappeared but her flailing feet. Then her mother said to me, "What kind of parents . . . ?"
And that's all she got out of her mouth before she realized WE were the parents in question.

(Back at the campsite, slightly mussed and certainly not smelling my best, I prepared for my defense.)

Dad: Mind explaining?
Me: (unloading bag as I spoke—I've found that spectacle always helps the defense) I have exactly 36. In less than an hour and a half.
Dad: You climbed into dumpsters.
Me: Yes. Yes I did. But time was an obstacle. And you said less than two hours. But you never said NO dumpsters. So I erred on the side of efficiency.
Dad: (grinning)

Upon examining the cans closer, I realized that 24 of the cans were from Canada. No refund. I still remember how it hurt my pride to take that money. But the coffee grounds on my outstretched arm consoled me. I'd earned it.



I caught a bluegill about an hour later. On my very own rod. It's a bummer that I didn't know how to get it off the hook, though. Poor thing made the whole ride back to my site with me, still on the hook. And he was scrappy, like me.