Yesterday I went to the dump to drop off a tire I had found in the forest, while I was there I saw a number of old tractor tires. They were huge and fantastic. I was overwhelmed by ideas of what to do with them: teeter totters, tire swings, sandboxes. I asked the woman in the box if I could take them and as I recall her exact words were:
“I can’t tell you that you can salvage here.”
As a fellow lover of words I recognized an expert communicator.
I returned the next day, today, with a few more tires I had to get rid of. I backed up to the pile of tires and threw them in. From there I began to attempt to heft one of the gargantuan things into the bed of a borrowed truck. It was a bodily thing and I was not succeeding as a gruff man I later learned was named Zeb approached.
“You trying to take one of those tires?”
“I’m considering it.”
I returned the next day, today, with a few more tires I had to get rid of. I backed up to the pile of tires and threw them in. From there I began to attempt to heft one of the gargantuan things into the bed of a borrowed truck. It was a bodily thing and I was not succeeding as a gruff man I later learned was named Zeb approached.
“You trying to take one of those tires?”
He asked.
I, under the impression I was potentially doing something I was not meant to be doing, responded:
“I’m considering it.”
Mind, the tire was half way into the truck bed. I was covered in grease, my white tanktop was grey.
“I’ll go grab my excavator and load em up for yah. You’ve got to take all four though!”
“I’ll go grab my excavator and load em up for yah. You’ve got to take all four though!”
The whole way there I was thinking up fibs for how to get away with just two, and not four: my car could barely make it up the hill to my house, my wife yelled at me, my roommate said no more borrowing his truck. It occured to me to just take the second and never come back, but it’s too small a world for that sort of behavior. In the end I resigned myself to just asking nicely.
The first words out of his mouth upon my return were:
“You don’t really need to take all four.”
I thought that was very sweet.
We talked for a while about what it’s like to work at the dump; he’s been doing it for 20 years. We introduced ourselves, I told him my plans for the tires, he explained how hard it is to get rid of said tires, and then he said they were hiring. They’d even teach me how to use the equipment.
The excavator has a sealed cab with AC.