a tale of an aluminum capitalist
I've been sorta angry today. Angry about my foot and leg pain and angry about communication. There have been a few different experiences/situations today that have involved shitty communication between people--sometimes with purposeful actions that have angered me and sometimes things that have not been purposeful. I don't even know why I'm bringing it up here; I just sat down to this and figured I'd write something.
On a different note, I can take this opportunity to mention how I made some money recently (and I'm talking about some serious cash). I guess you could say I'm practically gainfully employed now. It all started when Jen and I decided we should really get rid of our old aluminum cooking pots. There are questions and uncertainties regarding the health risks of using aluminum cookware. You almost certainly scrape off pieces of aluminum in the process of using them--sometimes microscopic fragments and sometimes, if you are like me anyway and use whatever metal utensil happens to be at hand (fork or otherwise) to scrape at whatever you just burned the hell out of off the bottom of the pot, possibly big scraps and slivers.
Anyway, all that is supposed to maybe, possibly, but probably almost surely be pretty rotten for you. At first we thought we'd drop the pots off at the nearby Goodwill but then realized that that's a pretty classist thing to do. I mean, aluminum pots aren't good enough for us, because we'd like to minimize, to the degree possible, environmental factors that might contribute to brain health problems as we age but aluminum cookware is good enough for anyone who can't afford steel, ceramic, or glass pots and pans. See what I mean? It's the same as thinking, well, this crappy thing, whatever it is, is gonna be a health risk, so I'll just give it to someone else with less access to income because, of course, something is better than nothing and they should just be damn happy that I'm so generous.
So, then we had the idea that we should recycle the aluminum. I unscrewed the knobs and handles (and when I couldn't do that, shattered them with a hammer), loaded up the three pots in my bike basket, and took them down to this metal place that I've been to before when I worked for the nursery. It's kind of a weird place; whole yards full of junked metal stuff and warehouses with a guy warming himself by a propane heater in the winter while cutting the cords off of cell phone chargers and throwing them into a huge mound of wires. At least, that's what I remember from my nursery trips.
Well, this time I was there on my own, with three pots worth their weight in gold. Or aluminum, anyway. The guy working in the aluminum district of the metal metropolis took a look at them and put them on a scale--they weighed in at just over three pounds! He did some quick calculating, filled out a carbon-copy invoice thing, and then gave me $1.65! Not knowing what to do with such an exorbitant amount of cash, I quickly left before I did something irrational with it. Gripped by an unknowable force, a passion, I biked home in a blur of unimagined riches and gargantuan desires.
I've heard that all it takes to make someone a capitalist is to give them a little money and, wow, is that ever right. You know, now that I've been exposed to the lure and lust of cold cash, I understand the lengths capitalists go to make profit. My own desire for material wealth now knows no limits, nothing is out of reach, and no means to profit are off-limits. In fact, I think I've finally figured out what I was put on this earth for--aluminum scavenging, and reaping the benefits thereof. No pot, no pan will escape the designs of my plan. Just as every dollar, every penny will succumb to my inexorable will. I am an architect of capital accumulation! I am a magnet to the metal that is cash.
On a different note, I can take this opportunity to mention how I made some money recently (and I'm talking about some serious cash). I guess you could say I'm practically gainfully employed now. It all started when Jen and I decided we should really get rid of our old aluminum cooking pots. There are questions and uncertainties regarding the health risks of using aluminum cookware. You almost certainly scrape off pieces of aluminum in the process of using them--sometimes microscopic fragments and sometimes, if you are like me anyway and use whatever metal utensil happens to be at hand (fork or otherwise) to scrape at whatever you just burned the hell out of off the bottom of the pot, possibly big scraps and slivers.
Anyway, all that is supposed to maybe, possibly, but probably almost surely be pretty rotten for you. At first we thought we'd drop the pots off at the nearby Goodwill but then realized that that's a pretty classist thing to do. I mean, aluminum pots aren't good enough for us, because we'd like to minimize, to the degree possible, environmental factors that might contribute to brain health problems as we age but aluminum cookware is good enough for anyone who can't afford steel, ceramic, or glass pots and pans. See what I mean? It's the same as thinking, well, this crappy thing, whatever it is, is gonna be a health risk, so I'll just give it to someone else with less access to income because, of course, something is better than nothing and they should just be damn happy that I'm so generous.
So, then we had the idea that we should recycle the aluminum. I unscrewed the knobs and handles (and when I couldn't do that, shattered them with a hammer), loaded up the three pots in my bike basket, and took them down to this metal place that I've been to before when I worked for the nursery. It's kind of a weird place; whole yards full of junked metal stuff and warehouses with a guy warming himself by a propane heater in the winter while cutting the cords off of cell phone chargers and throwing them into a huge mound of wires. At least, that's what I remember from my nursery trips.
Well, this time I was there on my own, with three pots worth their weight in gold. Or aluminum, anyway. The guy working in the aluminum district of the metal metropolis took a look at them and put them on a scale--they weighed in at just over three pounds! He did some quick calculating, filled out a carbon-copy invoice thing, and then gave me $1.65! Not knowing what to do with such an exorbitant amount of cash, I quickly left before I did something irrational with it. Gripped by an unknowable force, a passion, I biked home in a blur of unimagined riches and gargantuan desires.
I've heard that all it takes to make someone a capitalist is to give them a little money and, wow, is that ever right. You know, now that I've been exposed to the lure and lust of cold cash, I understand the lengths capitalists go to make profit. My own desire for material wealth now knows no limits, nothing is out of reach, and no means to profit are off-limits. In fact, I think I've finally figured out what I was put on this earth for--aluminum scavenging, and reaping the benefits thereof. No pot, no pan will escape the designs of my plan. Just as every dollar, every penny will succumb to my inexorable will. I am an architect of capital accumulation! I am a magnet to the metal that is cash.
posted by matt iv at 8:33 PM
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