Miller Low Life: Dumpster Diving for Pizza n’ Beer

Dollar Tree Dumpster Diving Haul

Where’s the Beef? Food Lion’s Dumpster

Dumpster Diving for Coupons

PS, wrote some more on the Trump article. Takes me forever to do anything.

Aldi Dumpster Diving

Dumpster Diving Video

Generally Hospitalled

The day was agonizingly beautiful. The sky was an endless robin’s egg and the bright sun bade me release t

Dumpster diving

he bonds of my apartment walls for the worthier pastures of mass transit and dumpster treasure. What is 87 F (31 C) for those of us seeking adventure, the Holy Grail, and something besides potato chips in our cupboards? Apparently, 87 F is a lot, as I felt all 220 pounds of my glorious body begin to broil medium well in the afternoon sun. Three huge bottles of dish washing liquid, Lisa Frank magnets, and a squished bottle of generic fruit punch and I began to feel the ill effects of heat exhaustion setting in .  Outrageous fortune beset me yet again when I realized the bus I boarded was air conditioning free.  Once I got home, the effects of my romp, plus the thoughts in my head erupted. And I vomited. In the trash can by my bed. In the commode. In a bucket of Pinesol by my commode. In the bathtub trying to calm down.
“Either I got heat exhaustion or that tooth that had that mild abcess is going septic,” I told my friend.

But back to vomiting.  In the yard waiting  for my friend to come get me. Desecrating a Walmat plastic bag in the car on the way to the hospital.  And once in a nifty vomit bag as the wheel chair I was in made too many jerking movements -but I apologized to the waiting room as any genteel southerner would.  I  vocalized that I wanted my mom, never mind that this section of the waiting room was where I finally was away enough from my mom to shed a tear at her impending demise back in 2011. Now, four years later,  Lisa the Stoic, is replaced by OCD Lisa chanting a mantra of “I’m so scared.”

Then the nurse, while taking my medical specifics gave me a pill, Zofran. Zofran, named for the ancient Greek god of Emesis and Refusing to Suffer in Silence. I was fine in 15 minutes.  Not sepsis. Not this time, Mom. I felt like an idiot as my panic subsided. I’ve vomited many times alone without alerting the media, but the heat exhaustion, sepsis in the tooth scenario weighed deeply in my mind along with other anxieties. I asked the triage nurse if it would be OK for me to go since I felt so much better. “Absolutely!” She said with a trifle more enthusiasm than necessary. But here I am a month later alive and  well, and I see they’ve moved the entrance to the emergency department, probably they’re hiding from me.

Belated Birthday Post December 8, 2014

If it’s snowing at WordPress and winter is nigh, Jesus and I are having birthdays.  I share my birthday with Ann Coulter, December 8th, and my birthday is also the day that guy shot John Lennon. While Ann Coulter is biting the head off of a chicken at her fete, my birthday is more subdued. I wait at a bus terminal attempting to go to my favorite place to dumpster dive. I like hitting the craft store and Dollar Tree, because everyone knows Dollar Tree is so damn expensive these days. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll even meet up with my would-be lover again. One day I headed for the Beyond part of Bed, Bath, and Beyond to scavenge through their brightly spray painted trash when a chunky transient  made   his suite by asking if he could touch my boob. I  declined  his romantic gesture and hurried away, but  at least at about 37  I still attracted  homeless Don Juans.

It is dusk by the time I make it to the craft store  and I fumble through the garbage using my tablet for light.  In the end I find a few ornaments, one a clay snowman. My mother would have loved this, I think, with a slight pain that vaguely reaches above my subconscious  before it’s gone. The memories of that other Lisa.

When inside Dollar Tree, some stocking woman asks if I paid for the stuff peeking out of my book bag. I sigh, hating her, opening my bag and telling her I got  the stuff from the craft store. I added, “In their dumpster, actually” in an icy tone. Did she apologize? Hell no.

Later that evening, I’m in a bar drinking Sundrop and listening to trivia. It’s too cold outside to wait a half hour for the bus. The bar has “hell” in the title, so of  course it’s warm. On the muted TV,  John Lennon is being canonized on ESPN, the sports channel. 

The bartender must have thought ,  ” poor cat lady,” my dollar bag of cat litter sitting by my seat like a the badge of my permanent  virgin state. One of my cards is declined, and before I can pull another, she gives me my soda on the house. Happy birthday, indeed.

The ornaments I found in the craft store dumpster.