I did my first bout of skip-raiding today.
I was driving past a skip on the drive way of a local house, when I noticed a couple of intact pallets poking out. I pulled over. It took me a few minutes to pluck up the courage to do anything about it- after all, someone rooting though your skip must be weired, right? With a deep breath, I got my story straight and walked up to ring the bell.
No answer. Damn.
Looking around, I could see that there was a "To Rent" sign in the garden and there were no curtains up at the windows. A quick glance up the street to make sure now one was coming, and I furtively skulked up the driveway towards the skip. Still no one challenged me, and so I slipped the pallet out of the skip and carried it over to my car. The point of no return.
I pushed it into the back seat of the car, dived into the driving seat and shot off, heading to the allotment before anyone noticed.
Having been brought up to be law-abiding and honest, it seems strange to take something that does not belong to me, even something that someone had thrown onto a skip and would soon be land fill.
That said, it didn't stop me going back for the second one.
There is no turning back now. I have started on the slippery slope of reclaimed materials. What next: Hey mate, if your not going to use that bath tub I could make a nice water feature?; Hey Buddy, don't throw that old tire out, I could grow potatoes in that. It's a short step from fishing pallets out of skips to becoming a fully fledged member of the Order of the Sandal-wearing Hippy Vegan Flowerdew crowd.
Are you going to throw that away?