Discovering Dargatz #108 - Every Penny Counts

"It all adds up" was the usual response I received from my dad when we were out and about collecting cans. My family wasn't in it for the environment. We did it to turn in for money. but the can collecting history of my family does commonly enter conversations I have had. While being pushed in a stroller, I assisted in can collecting at the 1982 World Series, which my beloved Brewers lost to the Cardinals in seven games. After camping out and spectating the Great Circus Parade in downtown Milwaukee, I scoured the streets, trash bag in hand, to find that precious aluminum. Heck, seeing a can while roaming the streets of Wauwatosa on our regular walks, my father and I would be guilty of picking up otherwise considered aluminum roadkill. We also had an unlimited supply of cans right in our basement. In a somewhat humorous and at times embarrassing end-of-the world soda stockpile, I drank can after can in my childhood (and notched cavity after cavity), just to collect it, turn it in for cash, and most likely, purchase more sugar water. Can collecting continues into my adulthood, though I restrict it to the cans I have purchased.