After a Friday or Saturday night at Carriage, there are loads of empties strewn about the lawn. There aren’t any public garbage cans (except for the dumpsters, which for some reason people don’t think of using) so unless you know someone in an apartment, the cans are usually just thrown on the ground. And there are lots of them. We’ve all heard stories of people making hundreds of dollars a weekend off of cans, and we’ve all entertained the idea of actually going out and getting them before anyone else.
The empties are in high demand. Usually after cops disperse the parties, people will clean their immediate front yard so they don’t get shit from the landlord. Then, early in the morning, locals come by to collect cans. That is, people who don’t go to UConn, but live close by. They know about this place, and come back each weekend. So by the time we wake up (around now) there aren’t any cans at all. You’d never know anything happened last night.
But what is the most interesting to me are the two groups that make this whole thing happen. There are the college students, who are here on their parents’ dime, and enjoying the hell out of themselves on the weekends. And then there are the people in their 30s and 40s, who we see as being in the real world, looking to make a little extra money and giving up part of their weekend to do so. Each group does this without batting an eye – there’s nothing weird about this. But to me it’s absolutely incredible.
That is really cool. I really like the way you describe the elaborate systems that surround something that a) seems pretty simple and b) generally isn’t given much thought. Very nice.