Scrounging on Date Night, and Current Day Happenings, and The ‘Rules Of Acquisition’

Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
Wheeeeeeeeeew.
This’s been a long day again. Up at oh-dark early to take Sapper to the E.R. as like I may have mentioned, he’s blown out his back. Just a pinched nerve, but so far, he’s on the Lame and Lazy List.

Add Gretchen being down as well with stomach issues (she’s got major IBS problems) from eating ‘something’ that activated her IBS full-bore, and I’ve been the full time house bitch again.

Swear to God, just call me fuckin’ Jeeves already…

So after I (we) got home, I made breakfast for everyone… Eggs, sausage, hash browns, English muffins… Gretchen likes her eggs over easy as do I, while I made the scrambled eggs for Sapper.

DeadDad taught me a trick to making really good scrambled eggs. You add a couple of ‘splashes’ of heavy cream to them right before you mix them up. Makes them really fluffy… and to add for flavor if one is so inclined, a dash of cinnamon as well as the fresh ground pepper. The eggs over easy I make by ‘floating’ each ‘set’ of eggs so to speak, on a pool of butter. I really go overboard, using a quarter of a stick melted in the fry pan and keeping the heat low so as to not brown/burn it. For making sunny-side eggs, I use a bowl and some water to steam the yolk juuust a wee bit so it doesn’t break.

Poached and/or Eggs Benedict are a completely different story for another time. Needless to say, my cooking as some of you have seen is primo.

That got us through breakfast/lunch as it was like 10:45 by the time we got home from the E.R. No lunch really needed at that point. This shit all being done though? Of course no rest for the wicked… Did allll the dishes, ran the dishwasher for the ones that could be ‘mechanically assisted’ and then cleaned the kitchen. I purely hate a nasty cooking area. I have to hit the floor tomorrow as it’s gotten pretty funky too dammit…

So since I’ve had a LONG list of ‘shit that needs to get done’ that’s been on hold since Gretchen’s “cancer thing” I got busy with those items. Thankfully that shit IS over-over. I’ve been trying to get some of the pieces-parts finished around here. One of them was cleaning up the workstation area in the kitchen.

Waaay back in the day I had set up a computer and monitor in a little ‘desk nook’ that’s in the kitchen. VERY popular back in the early 2000’s. As of late it’s been more of a ‘catchall’ for random shit… Like piles of ‘stuff’. Tupperware that doesn’t fit in the cabinets (those BIG looong ones) to my “Mini-Greenhouse” that I experimented to see IF I could at least some plants to at least start inside the house… it worked but anyways… That whole pile o’crap? That changed this weekend by finally cleaning it up, wiping everything down, and firing up an old Dell Optiplex that Gretchen and I found when we were dating on a Dumpster Dive Date.

You heard me correctly.
I used to take the at-the-time Girlfriend Dumpster Diving for a Date.
And she absolutely loved it.
Yeah… those were actually fun and profitable pre-COVID.

In fact we used to hit Yankee Candle and score pretty well right after some major holidays… all the candles that get returned because someone doesn’t like that ‘flavor/smell’, or the damaged ones with broken glass? Just take those home and finish the job with a small brass hammer I use for gunsmithing. Drop it in a new container and good to go… Another score from Yankee was a branded Zippo butane lighter:

Gretchen found it. It was like new. Didn’t work at the time, so I’m hazarding a guess that whatever hourly-wage-slave at $10 an hour kid working used it until the butane ran out, then shitcanned it without realizing you can reload it.

Their loss, our gain.
Reloaded, it works like a charm.

I mean these days? Scrounging like that/this is becoming almost mandatory. It’s why we haven’t started doing it as of late, mainly as the folks out there are doing it out of need, not want/fun.

When we were doing it, it was for literal “fun and prizes”. The Dell Computer(s) were like that… in 2018 Mattress Firm filed Chapter 11. We had no idea, but the day that it happened? Well seems that one of the stores in the strip mall we were “getting our Scrounge on” as I call it, was a Mattress Firm branch that just completely closed unexpectedly.

So, in this particular case and circumstances, I -think- that whoever was working got in their head:

“Fire/Lay me Off with zero notice? Fuck these motherfuckers”

And then threw all of the stores Computer Gear in the dumpster!!! We found 2x OptiPlex 7020 SFF (Small Form Factor(s), which means teeny case and ‘stuff’ to save room for business machines on the desk etc etc…) that were sale-point loaded… static IPs and set up to only ‘talk’ to the main sales server. I had to format and reload a OS on both of them. There were also 2x Monitors, both of them 26in. As well as all the peripherals like mice, keyboards and whatnot. The printer however looked like it’d been in that movie “Office Space”:

Beat alllll to fuck and gone.

I gave one of the PCs to a former employee of mine, ‘Kay’. Her financial situation wasn’t so hot at the time (this was after our Company laid everyone off back in 2018) and her kids didn’t have their own “school PC”.

I found this out when she was over the house having me fix HER laptop from the shit her 7 year old had downloaded… “Clean Up on Aisle 5” for computers. At least the kid didn’t go on a gambling website, rent a ton of movies or whatnot Aye?

Gretchen and her are friends as well hence her coming over to Mi Casa. I generally do not allow such things. However, she also occasionally still works for Gretchen doing hair when Gretch has a BIG wedding and/or some ethnic clients. Kay is a black chick if you hadn’t figured it out. She’s cool, hardworking and hasn’t tried to fuck us over, so she’s got that going for her.

Anyways… I kind of miss doing “The Scrounge.”
I mean our bedroom clock came from some High End Home Decorations store:

That sucker is like 3 feet across.
Heavy as hell too… it’s got a lot of carved wood on the face.
The glass was shattered, so I took out my omnipresent Leatherman, and removed the shards. Been running like ‘clockwork’ ever since.

So yeah… for us it was fun and games. There were a couple of times that we interacted with some of the others who were out doing the same thing. For the most part, the majority were friendly and we usually compared our “loot.” However, there were a couple of ‘outliers’. In particular there was a night we went to this one dumpster right across from the set we found the Clock in, and inside were like 5 or 6 dead car batteries.

-I- didn’t want them, and as Gretch and I were discussing it, a beat-to-shit pickup drove up, and what appeared to be a fucking Meth’d-Up dude got out of said-shitbox very aggressively, and started ranting about “his Dumpster” and that we “…we wuz stealin’ the food outta his kids moufs!!!”

The very fact that Crankhead Joe went off on me, a fucking MONSTER in size compared to this lil fucking tweeker? That told me that discretion was the better part of valor. Mainly as at the time I was still hemmed up under the Legal System from my divorce (trying to get the Attempted Murder and Assault w/a Deadly Weapon charges settled) and was effectively unarmed except for my collapsible baton, and harsh language.

Even having the baton I think was a no-no.

So needless to say, since I did NOT want any “Imperial Entanglements” (i.e. any possible interaction w/the PoPo) we beat feet to try again another night. Queue Monty Python: “Run Away! Run Away!!!” The very last thing I needed was another assault charge amiright? I mean proving self defense on a guy with a total of 4 toofuses, bad halitosis, and thinner than a 2×4? Shit like claiming that would have been a stretch, unless Gretchen caught it on camera…
Anyways
It took me a few days after the fact to figure out that Mister Meth-Head was probably earning like $5 a battery at the recycling center. THAT is why he was so bent out at the idea we were ‘stealing’ from ‘his dumpster.’ WHY this particular store was just throwing them out I have no idea. It was a battery store so to speak… one of them places that you can get anything from a itty-bitty hearing aid battery up to a Li-ON Deep Storage Battery for your solar panel powerbank. I would have thought that THEY would have had a recycling system in place, but what do I know? All of these being taken into account after the fact however…

That was back then in a ‘minor economic downturn’
NOW?
I’m betting it’s a LOT more dangerous out there.

People have been getting fucking shot for minor shit. I can’t even begin to think of the level of caution we’d need to go out and “Scrounge Safely”. In fact those kind of precautions needed would take all the fun out of it. Mainly because instead of “looting for loot” we’d be “competing for resources” with people who really need it to survive. (Mind you, this’d be considered ‘good training for a post Apocalyptic scene, but hey…)

It’s highly unfortunate.

The very fact that we’ve fallen economically speaking so far so rapidly that in less than five years, what had been a quirky, fun-to-do ‘game’ so to speak is now a ‘action plan’ for some families to just survive.

I mean yeah, currently THIS household is holding up. We’re making it. There’s been times though that we barely did, and the only reason I’m not homeless is because of y’all and your generosity. WE, both Gretchen and I still can’t thank you enough. She’s alive because of you guys (and Doc Samizdat) and all the prayers and support, both financial and through emails and letters and cards… Gretchen was really touched by some of them. Now, back to the reality… Point Blank:

There’s a whole lot of people who ARE NOT making it right now.

WAAAY TOO MANY!!!

And more than likely they WILL NOT be making it in the future. Not to be going all ‘Doomer’ and shit on y’all right now, as it has been a pretty good, if not exhausting day, but unfortunately there’s folks out there suffering.

And with that suffering comes a lot of anger
As well as desperation

Which, in turn means that for the foreseeable future, as much as I positively love to “Get My Scrounge On” we’ll have to take a ‘hard pass’ on any more “Dumpster Diving Dates” until we know which way things are going to break. From the ‘current day’ look of things?

>shudder<

Maaaaaaan it ain’t looking too good.

The very last thing I need is for myself, never mind The Love of Me Olde Life to get either hemmed up, or even worse, injured or killed over something stupid like ‘scrounging’ something someone would be calling “trash to cash” so to speak.

This sort of anger and desperation is what forms mobs.
It’s also palpable
Leviathan MAYBE dumb but IT is NOT Stupid by a long shot.

Hence why I oh-so-pointedly explained yesterday that Leviathan and it’s Minions are starting to run fucking scared.

I mean for fucks sakes.
They gave DePape-Schmear 30 YEARS!!!
And he has ANOUGH entirely separate Trial Upcoming
THAT ONE has a 40 YEAR ADD ON/Potential

All he did was, if you eliminate who he did the act to/and on, (namely the overprivileged cuck of The Gin Hag herself,) all he did was beat a motherfucker with a hammer. PROBABLY It’s ONLY because the ‘supposed victim’ was politically connected do we see any sort of theoretical “justice”. Otherwise?

Fucking MURDERERS get released without bail these days.
Fucking RAPISTS get probation
Even after they admit to the crime.
CHILD fucking RAPISTS get a pass. REGULARLLY!!!!
Blaqs, of all flavors get the free pass for damned near anything and anything criminally oriented.
Arthur Sido calls it “Negrophilia”

Link to that masterpiece is HERE

The poor fuckers in the Gulag from January 6th are still rotting away for NO legitimate reason. Some of them who ACTUALLY got to go to trial? Some of those poor fuckers got between 17 and 22 YEARS for what should have been considered Constitutionally Protected actions. But nnnnooooooooooo!

Make a move, raise a fist?
Hell, use harsh language i.e. FedPoasting ?

It’s off to the Gulag for you Comrade.
UNLESS
Well, It’d say we’re edging very closely to fulfilling this famous quote:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

One of the more recent case(s) in point of a “MASS SHOOTER” utilizing an “EVIL AR-15!!!!” was in North Carolina, late in April of this year, leaving 4 Dead, and LOTS of wounded.

This was a story that the state would have rather become a “quickly forgotten.” The story about this Ambush of some Feds (Marshals apparently) and North Carolina State Cops needed to go away for multiple reasons. Make this story ‘Vanish’ from the news posthaste, as per usual, well… one of the “protected class” in this case blaq again, and poasting vile shit online… well they tried to blockade it to no avail…MY own personal addendum is they don’t want people to know that this was an AMBUSH.

By MY professional look-see, dude

According to sources the shooter knew that the Marshals and Yokel Locals were coming, and he was waiting for them. ON HIGHER GROUND!!! Dude was on the second floor in an overwatch position. The shooting in Charlotte happened as “…members of a US Marshals fugitive task force (who) were serving a warrant for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the Shannon Park neighborhood, Jennings said.”

To me, this shows some serious Hubris on the part of the Federal Task Force, as well as a LARGE dose of complacency. For Fucks Sake they were serving a warrant to a already convicted felon who’s already been convicted of firearms charges as well as a slew of violent charges? Who thought just “walking up casually and arrest this clown?” would be a good idea? THAT fukkin dood should be shot, oo]]]] ut-of-handDid they think that the ‘awesomeness’ of their shiny badges was going to dazzle Mr. Hughes into surrendering?

I’d say that’s a big fat negatory there Ghostrider.

Instead, we get 4 dead, lots of Orphans, and another case of DotGov retardation that’ll eventually come to bite folks like US in the ass. Gar-ron-damned-tee that shytte right there Aye?

SO, let me wrap with this:

Leviathan is scared. Good/Bad News.
“When the Elephants Fight, the Grass Suffers”
We’re all the grass currently.

Leviathan is ALSO showing it’s big, dirty ass to everyone
Even the fucking Normies are waking the fuck up at this point.
People are getting scared
People are getting desperate
And so far, Leviathan cannot react the way it wants to
THEY know that they’re on a precipice.

For how long?
No One here knows, nor has a clue.
There is ONE who does have a hint though:

God Knows.
Trust in Him and Pass the Ammo right?

And on that note, I’ll end this by putting the End Meme a glorious thing that ALL Scroungers everywhere can enjoy. It’s the “Ferengi Rules of Acquisition” It took me a looong minute to put it together as I could find a complete one to download. So in my case, it was snip, save, copy, paste, align the jpegs, and then “wash rinse and repeat.”

We practically lived these rules back in Iraq
Time to be “Getting Back to the Good Ole Days” as appropo

So More Later
Big Country