Junk!

by Tom Acox, Virtual Voice (Narrator)

It is 2006, there is no recession and the author, Tom Acox, is working his way through graduate school hauling Philadelphia's junk out of basements, dorm rooms, and backyards. Welcome to the world of “Got Junk?”. Some of the customers divulge intimate divorce details; others pass on leftover pharmaceutical freebies; and then there is always the occasional live ammunition and skeletal remains found in a pimp's backyard. Every home holds a different story. Sometimes, a house will even be holding Acox's new couch or entertainment system, . It seemed like an easy summer job and turned into the author’s most physically and at times mentally grueling job. Bickering divorcées, grieving families, and the occasional scantily clad middle aged woman are just some of the folks Acox meets. Junk list at a job at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Three black leather office chairs, two unopened bulk size cartons of Easy Mac, assorted cases of ramen noodles, jumbo roll of garbage bags, a live Pearl Jam album, four working televisions between twelve and twenty one inches. A fifty inch big screen (with a golf ball lodged inside). Four completely empty yet completely smelly mini-fridges, three filthy but functioning microwaves, roughly four hundred blank CD-Rs (three hundred in spindles, about a hundred loose), four unopened bottles of Merlot, a digital voice recorder, two neon beer signs.

Audible Audio

Published April 8, 2025

About the author

After Tom Acox graduated from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, PA,
he authored a College Prowler guide to make sure all his favorite
college haunts would live on (they didn't, R.I.P Muddy Duck).

He has written for Metro Newspaper in Philadelphia and New York City and was even able to get a free meal or two as Philadelphia Weekly's Food and
Drink man in the street.

Currently, you can find him working on economics textbooks or
making whiskey in his apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Acox is a lover of BBQ, graphs, Mexican food, beer, statistics and cheese in alternating orders. He writes daily at www.theunqualifiedeconomist.com; occasionally at www.popblerd.com; and inappropriately at @ThatTomAcox. Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TheUnqualifie...."