To the Dump

I load up the trailer with rubbish and debris from around the house and head out to the tip.
Upon arrival there are half a dozen other cars & trailers/utes emptying their loads.
As I start throwing stuff off the trailer I spot a couple of interesting looking things amongst the mounds of refuse. I also notice that I am not the only one scanning the tip with more than casual interest. Several other blokes are doing the same. It's as if we're meeting for secret men's business, not saying much but clearly thinking the same thing: "I'll just go and have a closer look at that..."
Encouraged by this unspoken cameraderie I start poking around. The first thing I do is load up a TV, printer and a few old radios for relocation to the electronic goods recycling section. Their dumpers were obviously too lazy or in too much of a hurry to separate their junk. Then some car batteries which too have their own section. Good deeds done I can now focus on genuine scavenging. The greenie mantras include "Recycle" so it seems only right that I should rescue the unopened tube of glue, the police video, the lotto barrel toy and the Trivial Pursuit set from becoming landfill. A more speculative retrieval is the electric hedge trimmer. Surely it musn't work or it wouldn't have been thrown out (ha!). I bring it home and test it and sure enough it doesn't work. Curiousity satisfied I put it in the rubbish bin. The challenge is to go home with less than I came with. I manage, just.
Sport Boy programming Mrs Holt Press' new phone, a task so technologically demanding it requires an 11 year old to do it.
Monday was Spike's 18th birthday. We only have one child left! It was a low key celebration. Favourite Daughter is in Halls Creek and The Heir was sick and unable to come down so five of us including Spike's girlfriend Lauren went out for dinner at the Jade Chinese restaurant.
The food was average but the company and the occasion were good.
My second son and third child is officially an adult. Happy Birthday.