(Semi) Illegal Shenanigans

I’ve moved dozens upon dozens of times in my life, so I should be a pro at the process. Instead, I’m lackadaisical and unmotivated and rarely do I take the whole moving thing as serious as I should. As a result, I typically end up smashing all of my belongings inside of my zillions of hiking backpacks, claiming that is “packing” and grinning at my friends when they show up to help me move furniture. Seriously, I’m a treat!

My house won’t fit inside of these?

Fortunately for me, Will flew in this past weekend solely to make sure I didn’t make a repeat performance of my past shenanigans. He claimed that boxes make the entire moving process easier, and since I’m typically not one to argue with free help, I decided to go with the flow. But you know what? Boxes are harder to find than I expected! I asked most of my friends and family with zero luck. Then, I started visiting local grocery stores but still couldn’t gather up more than a handful. I finally received quite the stack from Brandy and Heidi who kindly nabbed the cardboard from their places of unemployment. Unfortunately, those boxes didn’t even make it through the massive quantities of gear I have stored in my garage, so I was once again on the prowl. I tried to convince Will that we could just cram all of my clothes, dishes and random odds ‘n ends inside backpacks, but he squashed that idea. I briefly considered running to Uhaul or The UPS Store to purchase boxes, but I quickly realized that the pieces of cardboard would likely cost more than my phone bill. Who knew places were charging an unborn child just for a couple scraps of box?!

At a standstill, I was verging on throwing in the towel. However, Will came up with the idea of checking out a few dumpsters in my neighborhood strip malls. I’ve never been one for dumpster diving (no, not even in college!), but it seemed like a logical decision. After all, why not re-use a bunch of boxes that people were already discarding? Brilliant!

We drove around for a bit and while we were able to snag a few boxes, we were still significantly short on quantity. Once again ready to bail, we headed back to my house when we caught a glimpse of gleaming cardboard poking up from the top of a dumpster. VICTORY!

We pulled into the parking lot and realized that the dumpster was next to the back door of a business. The door was wide open, so instead of being all sneaky, I decided to be neighborly and knock on the door to ask for permission to have their trash. An employee came out and I explained what I was looking for. She told me she assumed it was fine, but she needed to check with her manager in case. She left, and returned after a few minutes, completely embarrassed and red faced. Apparently, her manager had forbid her (and me!) from removing the boxes from the dumpster. I didn’t want to embarrass her further, so we left, but as we climbed into the car, I started questioning Will. “WTF? Why can’t we take their trash? That is the stupidest thing ever!” (Remember? Because it’s all Will’s fault and I’m a treat. Clearly!)

After we got home, I started Googling and realized two things. First of all, dumpster diving is a legit thing these days! In fact, I found hundreds of websites dedicated to locating the “best” dumpsters with the most prime goods. Crazy. Secondly, I realized that my exact issue was super common. Apparently, store owners frequently refuse to allow trash to be removed from their dumpsters, but it isn’t illegal unless the city or county has specifically named it as such OR it is marked with a “no trespassing” sign. (And again, I just consulted the beacon of all knowledge, the interwebs, so take this with a grain of salt!) Per the US Supreme Court, anything that has been thrown out is considered public property unless the city has written in a specific clause. The majority of cities have not bothered with this, so I felt pretty comfy in thinking that my city had not either.

In short, I was going back for my damn boxes!

Although I was fairly confident that I wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, I’m kind of a goody two shoes and really didn’t want to get caught. After all, the store had already refused me earlier! To sidestep this, Will and I came up with a plan, or a heist of sorts. We looked up at the store hours and realized that they closed at 9pm. We stayed up later than usual by watching a couple episodes of True Blood, and finally decided around 11pm that it was safe to venture out. I debated wearing all black ninja clothing and a face mask, but for some reason, Will thought that was too over-the-top. Weird.

Too much?

We headed back to the store, and sure enough, our pristine boxes were still sitting on top of the dumpster and littering the ground around the base. Y’all, I’m pretty sure I would’ve done a happy dance if I wasn’t so scared of getting caught! I kept reminding myself that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but the late-night shenanigans had convinced my brain to run on nervous mode. Will even dimmed our car headlights when we pulled in so as to not attract any attention! Yes, we’re that cool!

In the end, I collected at least a dozen amazing boxes from the dumpster, and Will managed to find an even larger stack from a second dumpster down the way. In short, we were running all over the back of this building at midnight, acting like thieves and totally freaking out. Guys, I’m pretty sure this is what happens when good kids want to think they’ve gone bad. I should be embarrassed, but instead I think it’s wicked funny!

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What’s the most “illegal” thing you’ve ever done?