Further adventures in suburban gleaning

So around 10:30 this evening, I got a voice mail from our church's Dive Team Captain saying she was headed for the [ESTABLISHMENT NAME REDACTED] near us to see what's the what, dumpster-wise, and did we want to join the expedition?

So we said yea verily, and headed over to the [REDACTED] parking lot, consolidated into one vehicle, and dove. (Dived? Huh - apparently it depends on where you are.) There were two bags with what appeared to be worthwhile stuff in them: one with a variety, the other with just some oranges. We ended up with the oranges, some strawberries, figs, little pita breads, and a whole lot of hamburger rolls that we really didn't want, and thus returned to whence they came. ([REDACTED] throws out a lot of those this time of year.) All in all, pretty slim pickins. But we could tell the store employees were still restocking and de-stocking shelves in there, and there were a whole bunch of shopping carts full of who knows what sitting in the store near the entrance, so we figgered we'd stake it out for a while, hoping for the big dump.

We chatted for a while, and then the Captain stated that further waiting would require fuel, so we went to the nearby [FAST FOOD ESTABLISHMENT] and got a couple of shakes (and fries for Tina - OK, LARGE fries to share.) We were now in danger of having spent more on gas and junk food than we had saved through our paltry take.

We also noticed that there seemed to be someone sleeping on the front porch of the abandoned restaurant next door to [FAST FOOD JOINT].

We went back to [REDACTED] and waited a while. While we were waiting, someone got into the car we'd parked next to in the mostly-empty parking lot, drove down to the dumpster, put on the flashers, and futzed around a while there. We were pretty darn curious, I must say. Was this competition?? When he'd gone, we spun back down there and checked it out. Nope, turns out he was making a deposit, not a withdrawal: there was a new bag of garbage in there, and it wasn't [REDACTED] products. Used diapers and such. "Dude," we thought self-righteously, "that's illegal." ;-)

We gave it a little more time, but now it was midnight and we were turning into pumpkins. So we headed back toward the Captain's van, which took us by the abandoned restaurant where we'd seen someone sleeping out front. That person seemed to be awake now, so at the Captain's suggestion, we decided to go say "Hi" and see if he or she would like some food. She turned out to be a very nice lady who was camping out there where there was a bit of shelter. We introduced ourselves and explained where we'd gotten the food, and she seemed happy to accept all of it. We chatted a bit more about the weather and [REDACTED]'s food disposal habits, and then said farewell and headed home. She was cool. We'll definitely keep an eye our for her when we return.

This is fun. Y'all should do it. As I've offered before, if you email me, I'll be more upfront about details and esoteric dive-fu (though due to my relative lack of experience, your mileage may vary).