Amazing what folks throw away

[Swingman]

One of the periodic irritant$ of building houses is that folks, from neighbors to landscape crews, use your dumpster/construction trash boxes as their personal dump ... but sometimes it pays off:

Last evening someone chunked, into one of my 4 x 8 OSB trash bins, a Craftsman, 1/3 HP, 3400 rpm, dual wheel bench grinder, in _perfect working order_ and with two new grinding wheels. Said tool from the era when Craftsman tools were worth the price, .

It also pays, sometimes in more ways than you anticipate, to get yerass out of bed and be the first one checking out the sites each morning .... :)

Some T9, a little WD40, and that sucker was screwed to my workbench by lunch. ;)

[Robatoy]

That's a drive-by gloat. Henceforth thou sucketh...in all due respect and envy.. of course.

r

[Zz Yzx]

Huh.

As a kid in high school, I worked in a lumber yard/hardware store. We used to find stuff in the dumpsters sometimes: good lumber, tools that looked almost brand new, &tc.

Then they figured out that one of the yard men was stealing said items. He'd stash them in the dumpster and go back at night to recover them.

I wonder if anybody at the jobsite or nearby sites is missing a bench grinder?

-Zz

[Larry Kraus]

On one of my evening inspection (and trash pickin') visits while our home was under construction, I found a nearly new microwave oven. Still in the original box, minus packing and instructions, with a bit of warmed up pizza residue. Works perfectly.

[Robatoy]

..rewind to 1975, Ontario Hydro Generating Station..

I was catching a little air one evening when I noticed a few tools on the ground next to a fence. I wondered what they were doing there. As I am standing there, a hand reaches from under the fence-boards and feels around for those tools.... never been able to resist an opportunity for some comedic effect, I grabbed it and pulled real hard and bent the arm upwards. On the other side of the fence, I heard moaning. No idea who it was... but I had his Casio watch for years.. and once in a while I'd look at the watch..... and wondered if he shit himself.

r

[Swingman]

Hehe ... Many years ago, when bumming around Australia as a feisty young lad, a burglar backed out of the window of my girlfriend-at-the-time's apartment in Cairns just as we were coming in from a late night at the pub, right into my arms.

... I'd bet that a day hasn't gone by since that he's not prayed that his luck in life has changed. ;)

[Swingman]

Nahh, it was pretty obvious from the rest of the trash with it that it was a freeloader availing him/herself of the dumpster. Most likely someone (one of the local yuppie puppies?) cleaning out an older person/parent's garage and didn't have a clue what it was.

It is old, the safety glass shields were bent, and the whole unit was dirty/grimy from years of non-use to the extent that I would have bet the price of a new one that the motor was fried before plugging it in.

But it cleaned up real nice, the metal parts straightened up with no ill effects, and the bearings are in such good shape that it spins for at least a minute after powering it off.

[Lew Hodgett]

Zz Yzx wrote: > Huh. >

Ranks right up there with the story about a wheelbarrow full of straw leaving the plant every night.

Lew

[Larry Blanchard]

Well, they didn't throw it away, but I got a brand new OptiVisor with lenses, still in the original packing, for $2 at an estate sale last Friday :-).

[Robatoy]

LOL...lemme guess.... when you 'helped' him down from the window, you wagged your finger at him and said: "That wasn't a nice thing you did, mister.." and left it at that?

*G*

[Pat]

A story I first heard, I believe, on the Jack Benny show back in the '50s.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Sounds like the one about the guy in the bike factory taking home bags of sand every night. Ring a bell now?

[Australopithecus scobis]

OK, but only because you asked.

Pavel the udarnik wheels a wheelbarrow full of dirty sawdust out of the Red Star Tractor Factory. Ivan the gate guard suspiciously jabs about with his bayonet, but lets Pavel leave with the waste. This continues every day for years. One day, Ivan says to Pavel, "Pavel Niklay'tch, this is my last day at the glorious Red Star Tractor Factory. Tomorrow I am retired. I promise I won't tell anyone, but I cannot take my ease in the Park of Culture and Rest unless I know this. Please tell me, what have you been stealing for all these years?" "Wheelbarrows."

[John]

Hey swingman, do you still have my watch? It has sentimental value. My Mama stole it for me.

[John]

Sorry, I meant Robotoy.

[Tim Taylor]

HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA

[lwasserm]

When I first heard it about 25 years ago it was hand trucks.

[toolmiser]

Please repeat the straw story for those of us who don't have a good memory.

[Roy Smith]

Kind of hard to load a hand truck up with sawdust.

[jo4hn]

Remember the Johnny Cash song about the guy who works at the Cadillac plant? He systematically steals Cadillac parts when he can. Finally after many years he has completed the assembly of a '59, '60, '61, '62, ... Cadillac.

yeehaw and kudos to Johnny C., jo4hn

p.s. Folsom Prison Blues was always my favorite.