Buckets: 1 for 3

Today I walked past another perfectly awesome and empty 5-gallon bucket, and I let it go. It was an empty pickle bucket set next to the dumpster at my office building, presumably from the deli on the ground floor of the building. I was on my way into work, and my sense of professionalism only barely stopped me from taking it inside, up the elevator, and into my office to distract everyone with the sour, herby aroma of pickles until I could strap it to my bicycle's rack and ride it back home.

Yesterday on my way to the office after stopping at my parents' apartment (on foot this time - complicated commute) I cut through an alley and saw an empty bucket of soy sauce (the quantities of some of these condiments that restaurants go through amazes me). I let it sit, reminding myself that I have another month at least, and buckets are turning out to be really easy to come by. There will be more of them, don't worry.

I might have grabbed that soy sauce bucket if I hadn't scored a large, empty kitty litter bucket just a half hour earlier on my way to the 46th Street El stop. It was perched enticingly atop someone's recycling bin, and, praying that the train wouldn't be so packed that I'd feel like a scumbag for occupying the extra space (it wasn't, and I didn't), I grabbed it. I then stashed it at my parents' apartment, awash in the warm glow of the successful garden supply score.

Postscript: I broke down and grabbed that pickle bucket later in the afternoon. I stashed it in the bike room. I'll lash it to the bike and take it home with me.