#12 in our I-Alice’s YesterYears series
Large bold letters in our local newspaper read, “Cash for Glass”. A rush of excitement rolled over me. “Bottles!” I shrieked to the lonesome dingy walls. “Money, money” I chirped as my eyes roamed around the basement shelves overflowing with jars in all shapes and sizes. It took hours to rewash and check each item for chips.
“Here, read this!” I showed to ad to my none too enthusiastic partner hoping to entice him to help me load the half-ton-truck. But he was busy, so it was me that gently loaded all the crystal clean jars and glass bottles; anything with a chip was tossed into the old gas-barrel turned into burning barrel. I decided they weren’t of any use.
After spending the morning loading the truck, my neighbor arrived on the scene. “Whatever are you going to do with all those bottles?” she asked. “They’ll pay cash,” I answered. She doubted my project so I showed her the ad. By now the truck was as full as I dared to load it.
After dinner I drove slowly to the address that was listed. Some forty-five miles later I found a huge depleted building and again the same excitement rolled over me as I read the large bold letters: CASH FOR GLASS. I was busy calculating how long it would take to carefully unload all that glass.
That’s when an elderly man’s deep voice called out, “Back her up inside that door!” Nervously I slowly swung the old farm truck around. “Back ‘er up some more” he hollered impatiently. Backing into a dark door took a great deal of courage; it wasn’t often that I needed to back up on the open prairie. Finally I was parked right over the trap door. Then I noticed that the truck and me and the glass were being weighed like a load of grain. The thought occured to me how I’d be making heaps of money today. I may get as much for glass as we do for grain, maybe more. Huh! I puffed up even more.
As I felt the hydraulic lift the front of the truck, my heart sank. “My bottles”, I cried out to the confines of the rusty old truck cab. My knuckles turned white as I clutched firmly onto the steering wheel fearing I might fall into the pit -truck, bottles and me. “Stop, stop!” I pleaded, “Let me out,” but no one heard. Silence!
A screech and a bang were the next sounds as he flung the truck’s rusty end gate open. Then came the horrible crashing and smashing as my bottles fell helter skelter down into the dark pit. I looked out the back window in time to see a huge steel plunger dropping down. The crunching of glass rang in my ears. My clean chip-free jars had now turned into a million splinters.
On demand I hurriedly rolled off the now downed ramp and I sat there stunned, my heart thumping painfully in my chest. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I pondered the destination of all the clean bottles and jars I had loaded earlier.
A sudden knock on the truck window brought me back to the present. Quickly I cranked it open and a calloused hand gave me a legitimate-looking cheque. No words were exchanged. Dumbfounded I looked at the cheque. My eyes could not believe the numbers that were neatly written on the official looking paper. “This, this is all I get? I whispered. Impossible. Geez! If only I had brought all the chipped bottles from the steel barrel. Then I might have enough money to get a Banana Split at the ice cream parlor. That’s what I am craving on this sweltering hot day.