The Scrap Metal Subculture

If you ever have an afternoon to see the sights, meet new people, and learn new things about the city in which you live, just breeze on down to the local scrapyard. Yes, kiddos, the scrapyard. Oh, this bustling hub of meltable money is the perfect place to people watch. Just sit back and watch as the shadiest of characters pack in with pick-ups piled sky-high with carefully laced towers of dubiously acquired metal. It seems to take a certain breed of people to take on this career path. Something about the ubiquitous nature of being a scrap metal collector means that to ply this particular trade, you must dedicate every waking hour to finding metal. It is nothing for a man in a tattered pair of coveralls, hands covered in filth, cigarette precariously balanced in the corner of his mouth to swoop down like a vulture upon a ferrous treasure no sooner than it can be rolled out to the curb. They are the ninjas of metal collection, they can smell the rusty iron permeate the air, they always know where to pounce. Now, I can say that I have never personally seen any attempt at an organized, professional, polished curbside scrap metal collection company, and I can't even imagine that they exist. You are not going to see men in matching uniforms in vinyl wrapped vans touting the name, address, and licence number of the collection agency roaming the streets, no sir. It is always pairs of scrappers, riding slowly down the streets in patched jalopies, dented and scarred, head on a swivel, peering out of truck cabs with yellow jaundiced eyes, aware of every opportunity for collecting a few more pounds of instant cash. But the scrap yard is where these men of metallurgical science congregate. Like ants carrying loads that seem way to big for one small insect to ever handle, the trucks roll in heaving with seemingly impossible stacks to dump their payload into giant mounds of metal, hives of iron waiting to be shredded, crushed, banded, crated, and sent forth on the slow boat to China. They wait outside in meandering lines, speculating on today's prices, trading stories, and speaking in the coded language of scrap. However, the best people to watch at the scrap yard are the wide-eyed and frightened yuppies who were talked into trying to squeeze a buck out of their own discarded water heaters rather than sacrificing it to the gods of metal. Mixed into these lines, shoulders hunched in as if they could possibly draw themselves inward far enough to hide from the professional scrappers, they stare longingly at their $50,000 leather upholstered chariots of safety and separation. Haha. Suckers. Was it worth the $8 to stand shoulder to shoulder with the common man? But seriously, go to the scrapyard, check out the situation as a whole. If the people don't strike your fancy, you can always watch the magnetic claw crane thing do work.