On dumpster divers

I like Jess onThe New Girl. I like that she's brave enough to be so quirky. I like that she always wants to believe the best of everyone she meets.

I thought of her while bagging up my recyclables tonight. I haven't been to the bottle depot in years - it's just not worth driving to one and then standing in line, clutching my one garbage bag, behind five different people with at least five bags of bottles and cans.

So I leave my bags by the dumpster in my parking lot. They disappear quickly. Often, if I see a dumpster diver and they don't give me the heebie-jeebies, I'll give them bottles from my car, or grab a half-full bag from my apartment and bring it out to them.

Only once have I seen dumpster divers that have given me the heebie-jeebies. One guy was in the dumpster, ripping apart bags with a creepy zeal, while his cronies were apparently standing guard. They got no bottles from me. But everyone else has. Like Jess, I tell myself that they're good people and they need the bottles for good reasons. And if they want to go stand in line at the bottle depot, all power to them.