Yesterday afternoon, Pia and I pulled down some copper wire that was used as an unusual ceiling decoration by the previous owners. We had heard that you could sell scrap copper, and since, to my estimate, I had over 20 pounds, I decided  to run it out to the scrap metal buyer — I figured we must have one in this large industrial city. Pia found a place in North Fort Worth that stated by phone they were willing to buy it, and armed with the address and some simple directions on a post-it note, I drove out to the Northside in my old trundling Suburban which has no air conditioning.

Where the slip of paper with the directions and the address got to I don’t know, but by the time I reached 28th Street, it was gone, perhaps blown out the open window (no air conditioning, remember?) “That’s okay,” I thought. “I remember it said right on North Main, left on 38th, I’ll try that and if it doesn’t work, I’ll call Pia for more instructions.”

Okay, it didn’t work. I called Pia and she gave me more instructions but of course I didn’t pay enough attention and made wrong turns aplenty, was honked at more than once, made a possibly illegal u-turn back at the freeway onramp where it all started, and figured out that Commerce Street doesn’t go all the way through from 28th to 38th. I ended up circling the address three times before I finally pulled up 45 minutes later.

I expected something like an industrial warehouse. But this place was more like a huge junkyard, an entire city block with piles of metal at least two stories high, front loaders and 18 wheelers rolling all over the place, a drive-on scale, and no obvious place to park something as insignificant as a Suburban. It was so hot I was getting dizzy. It was so hot my normally straight hair was curly.  I am supposed to be a respectable senora but my clothes were sticking to my body and I knew no nice lady was going to be expected to show up at a place like this.

The scrap metal workers wore baseball caps with bandanas hanging down as if we were on the Sahara desert. There were no other women anywhere. There was just about no one who didn’t have a beer belly.  A huge metal gate stood tall enough for any fully loaded semi to pass through. Letters of rusted pipe spelled out the name of the yard. In the middle of everything was a small building with glass windows. That would be the office. I parked on the street and looked in. Huge trucks rolled past. “I can’t do it,” I thought. “Walk in there, some lady with two neatly coiled copper bundles? I can’t. What if they won’t buy the copper? What if they only give me $3.00 and a weird look? I mean, I clearly don’t know what I’m doing here.”

I sat in the truck for a moment. No, it wouldn’t do. I’d have to go in. After all that driving around, I had to see this thing through. I walked across the asphalt, dodging trucks large and small, and pulled open the door to the building. The office was full of people speaking Spanish. I stood at the counter waiting for someone to notice me. Very quickly, a young guy did.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked. I nodded. “Put it up here.” He checked it with some kind of magnet that, I assume, told him if it was solid copper. I guess it passed the test, because next he said  “Put it on the scale outside.” I walked out and there was a platform scale, about 4 feet by four. I put the coils on, looked in the window, and the guy motioned me in.

“Twenty-two pounds copper, fifty dollars and 60 cents,” he told me. “I’ll need a copy of your driver’s licence and your vehicle info.” And in about ten seconds, a young woman handed me the money, I signed the receipt, they carried off the copper, and that was it. I walked back through the blistering heat of the yard. Fifty bucks! I thought. Well, I guess it was worth it. And to think I had almost not gone in.

Just goes to show, you’ve got to try to follow through on what you start, even if you’re not completely presentable, even if you’re a stranger in a strange land, even if you’re not sure it will work. Even in the dog days of August.

And it will help if you have a “crew” like Pia at home for when you loose the directions, too.