Today I was rooting around in the trash, and I found an old sweater, and it felt like my birthday.

Ewww you say?  And three months ago I’d have totally agreed with you.

You see, if you’re reading this from the future, and all of this is somehow better and you’re not worried about having someone’s dear old dead grandmother biting your face off tomorrow, then you don’t understand.

We had nothing before yesterday, and today there was a quake.  One of those big California shakers that makes the ground tremble and makes you wonder, just for a second, if that big old Hellmouth under you really exists and will swallow you whole.  After the quake, we have even less.

Which brings me to the national Arklay pastime, dumpster diving.

Everyone does it.  The Sheriff probably.  Father Frank. And even me, pretty Doll who doesn’t like to get her nails dirty, but I’ll still search through the old garbage left by civilisation without a seconds thought, and take what I find to the S-Mart and trade it for $5, or $25, and I’ve never been luckier than that.

Sometimes though, it’s dangerous.  There might be an old junkies needle, a used condom, or worse, a deadite that’s somehow fallen into the dumpster.  People have even DIED doing this.

This is Arklay.  And our Olympics is trash.