Apparently, not too terribly long ago, back when Xomba was but an infant on the World Wide Web, someone wrote an article about how to make money by collecting and then selling scrap metal. It was, apparently, quite a popular little posting and the people who run this web site were very happy because ad revenue was great with that particular posting. I am quite sure that it was full of useful information. I also know that people seem to be collecting scrap metal and making a living collecting and selling scrap metal.

You see these people all the time now. I hadn’t realized how people were moving from collecting aluminum cans and into collecting just about every piece of metal that isn’t tied down. God forbid you put anything metal near the curb and leave it for more than a few seconds. More than likely someone is going to come by and throw it in the back of a truck and take off with it before you can blink.

Of course, there is a key ingredient that seems to be missing from that original article about making money by recycling scrap metal. There is no mention of the truck you will need. Apparently there much be blueprints everywhere because all of these trucks look exactly the same. You’ve probably just passed about a thousand of them just driving to work. I think that’s a very important and key thing and should be discussed.

The first step seems to be to get a rusted-out pick up truck. It doesn’t matter what make or model the truck is, but it should definitely be rusted-out. It should look as though a strong breeze or perhaps a decent-sized sneeze by the driver will cause the truck to explode into a million pieces all over the side of the road. It should have several pieces, particularly on the under-carriage, held on the vehicle by wire. The truck should rattle as much as possible. The pain should be faded to the point where the truck is almost transparent.

The second step is to construct walls that go around three of the four sides of the truck bed so you can stuff more metal in the back of the truck than would be allowed without the walls. The best way to do this is to take very tall planks of wood and then affix them to three sides of the truck. These pieces of would should not be supported in any way. They should lean dangerously to the right or to the left. The planks of wood should be relatively thin and have holes in it. It should wobble and shake as the truck drives down the road. Everything should be done to make the wooden planks look as dangerous and flimsy as possible. It should very much look like hitting a good-sized bump, or perhaps that driver sneeze, will cause the walls on the back of the truck to crumple or fall to the side and dump the entire contents on the road or any passing vehicles.

The truck should then be filled with so much stuff that it looks as though the entire contraption will fall apart at a moment’s notice. It should be piled high without any thought to strapping the metal down or safety of yourself or any of the other drivers. It should look very much like the entire load will collapse the flimsy walls and dump the entire load on the road and kill as many other drivers as possible. For a little extra fun have too many people helping you out so one guy has to stand on top of dangerous, rusted and twisted metal in the back of the truck. He should have to stand at the very top of the ridiculously flimsy, thin and tall planks of wood like a look-out in the crow’s nest of an old whaling ship.

Now you should drive as slowly as possible down as many busy city streets as possible. If you have to get on the highway you should drive at least thirty miles slower than the actual speed limit. You should have as long a line of frustrated drivers behind you as possible. You should have a rickety enough rig that no one wants to pass you because no one would want to be driving next to you because the entire back of the truck looks like it will tip over onto passing drivers.

Finally, you should start driving up and down alleys and up and down streets and rooting through garbage. Take anything that isn’t nailed down. Throw the pipes and metallic pieces in the back of the truck without any consideration to placing them neatly in the back or tying them done. No, surely those flimsy and tilting planks of wood will be enough to hold the heavy chunks of metal in the vehicle. To hold it down, place that extra guy you have on top of the pile of the metal.

All of this will, of course, bring you a fortune. People are just dying to get rid of their various scraps of metal. Other drivers just love to be delayed behind a slow-moving scrap metal truck. The only thing that looks like it’s more fun to be behind would be the strange trucks piled dangerously high with wooden pallets for absolutely no reason. I think there should be races between those wooden pallets guys and the scrap metal truck drivers. We could be on the brink of a whole new NASCAR-type racing league.

I have no idea if going around in rickety trucks with flimsy and dangerous-looking wooden plank walls makes money. I have no desire to walk around looking for scrap metal. I would lose money in tetanus shots alone, I figure. I just know that these trucks look insane. They look like they could fall apart at a moment’s notice. Isn’t there some kind of law about having planks of wood attached in no conceivable manner to the back of your pickup truck? I love it when they have tiny, skinny arms of wood nailed to the edges of the planks as if that will provide all the support needed to hold in all of that metal.

As I said, if you are about to embark upon the lucrative career of taking metal I think this is a very important key ingredient. There seem to be fleets of these things out there. Apparently there must be some scrap metal worker’s union out there looking to standardize the crappy pickup trucks with the flimsy wooden planks that are, right now, patrolling the streets looking for your leftover metal

Good luck and good scrapping.

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.