Free Sausages for a Month

“Treats in the freezer,” Uncle Tommy texted me. It was January 31^st, 2017 and I would be getting home from work soon. Now, I love treats, so you can imagine how excited I was to find out what Uncle T had in store. When my Uncle or I find a big haul of food with some treats, we usually don’t tell the other person what exactly we found. Watching them come home and be surprised by something new in the fridge is a pastime that never gets old.

When I got home, I didn’t putz around. I went right to the freezer as Uncle T looked on from the other room. What could he have found?

I saw a large, brown box with “Johnsonville” written on the side of it. This seemed promising. I took out the box, placed it on the table and opened it up. I started taking out packages of Brown Sugar & Honey breakfast sausages. The box was filled to the brim. In total there were 12 packages of 14 sausage links, 168 total sausages.

I calmly walked over to the window, opened it up and yelled at the absolute top of my lungs “OH WOW!!!” to the amusement of my Uncle.

My Unks don’t putz

This was an incredible haul. Unks said he found this walking home in an alley behind some stores and restaurants. It wasn’t even inside a garbage can, just sitting on top of one. Plus, the expiration on the box was February 3^rd. Why were these thrown out? They hadn’t even expired yet! With 20-degree winter weather, we knew the sausages were still perfectly fine!

168 free sausages meant 3 free sausages a day each for 4 weeks – for both of us. We had breakfast for the entire month of February! Every morning we loaded six into the skillet and feasted. They were delicious. The fact that they were free made them even tastier. We did not take it for granted. This was one of our best hauls (pre-vegan-only days). We went to bed every night pumped to have sausages in the morning.

Dumpster diving can be boom or bust in nature. You can go a couple of days without finding anything or you can find multiple big hauls in one day. When you find a big haul, it can sustain you for a long time. Suppose we hadn’t found any other food for a week. We could have eaten sausages every single meal for well over a week.

It can’t be understated – every little find adds up. Still, big finds like these allow you to go for long stretches without buying groceries. They also keep things exciting. Life is like a box of sausages – you never know when you’re going to feast.

-Freddy