My Favorite Dumpster

July 26, 2026

Kara is knee-deep in our favorite dumpster. She’s slinging down a cascade of flowers while I keep watch for cars. Red roses, carnations, unidentifiable mixed bouquets. I add them to the growing pile at my feet.

Soon enough, the fear of being confronted becomes too much, and Kara hops out of the trash. She swipes at the raspberry jam on her pant leg as I notice a streak of slime across my shirt.

But there’s no time to deal with garbage juice now. Down the block, a set of headlights is turning onto the street.

Maybe they’re headed for the apartment complex across the way. Or maybe it’s a cop ready to bust us. We aren’t about to find out. We scoop up armfuls of flowers and sprint across the street, tripping over ourselves through near-hysterical laughter.

Back at my place, we divide the cellophane-wrapped bundles between us. Flowers weren’t what we’d hoped to find. But they weren’t in either of our budgets, so we leapt at the opportunity to fill our apartments with the rare treat.

It's not that we needed to dive. We had enough to eat. It's that this was a chance to get more than we needed.

Our usual scores were fruit. Most nights, we found more berries than we could eat. There were also onions, watermelons, boxes of cereal. Crackers. Coca-Cola. Laundry detergent. Even a car-mounted bike rack that we sold for $50 on Craigslist, gleefully splitting the money when we returned flat broke from a road trip to Yellowstone that we definitely could not afford.

Each night after making our selections, we’d squeeze into my tiny kitchen for scrubbing, chopping, and dividing our haul between us. She would inspect for mold. I’d divide the raspberries into freezer bags. How many smoothies could we make with this?

In a world where a single pint of raspberries cost $6 and I brought home $900 a month, it felt like a minor lottery win.

It’s been over a decade since I last set foot in a dumpster. My budget stretches to both fruit and flowers now. Kara’s does too. But we still look. No good dumpsters lately.