Cycling home behind a supermarket-which-shall-remain-nameless with a bag of groceries on either handlebar I encounter a friend hanging around the bit where they keep the bins, and I immediately suss what he’s up to.
My friend gets most of his food from these bins, and plenty more besides. Once I went round his house and it was bedecked with thousands of daffodils, which were past their sell-by date, though you couldn’t tell. He’s boasted of prawns and tuna steaks. Great hunks of beef. The way he’s described it, it’s like going into a fridge unit and picking out the best-looking cuts.
I decide to have a go. He shows me how. You launch yourself up onto the edge of the wheelie bin and dip in, leaving your legs outside to balance. Then you grab what you can see, give it a good sniff and decide whether to take it home. It’s not, I realise, like going into a fridge unit and picking out the best cuts. It stinks. And there’s nothing obvious to take: possibly because he’s already been in there. I prod at some hamburger meat, and a few coins fall out of my jacket pocket. I fish one or two out, and figure it serves me right to have lost the rest.
I take my leave, and cycle home, ready to cook the food I’ve legitimately bought. I fish in my pocket for my keys, which aren’t there. They should be… in the pocket… where the coins which fell out were in. Damn damn damn. Back on the bike, back to the bins, back in that strange, uncompromising position. I can’t see my keys: I have to start feeling into the rubbish to try and find them. I’m there for about half an hour, with no luck. I decide, for a second time that evening, to call it a day, and I ride back, with stinky hands, realising that I’m not cut out to be a freegan.