[00:11] Speaker 1: Welcome to the Junk Refund Show, hosted by Alan J. Cook, founder of 1-800-JUNK REFUND. Have you ever paid those expensive junk removal companies to take away some of your stuff only to say to yourself, as a truck drives off down the street, "Some of that stuff wasn't junk." Did they try to sell it for you and give you some money back? No. Well, now there is a company that can do just that. Listen to our weekly Junk Refund Show on BBS Radio TV to learn how one lady spent $375 on junk removal and got $3,200 back. 1-800-JUNK REFUND represents the next generation of junk removal. Learn how to not only save your money on junk removal, but how to get some money coming back. Plus, purchase one of our radio vouchers during the show to save even more on your junk removal. Let's get the junk out of your home and out of your life. Now, with your host, Alan J. Cook.

[01:38] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Junk Refund Show coming to you live from Bethesda, Maryland, where we have about a foot and a half of frozen snow that has taken over the city, the area, and the, uh, DMV that we call it, the Washington, DC metropolitan area. It has been, uh, it's taken me back to my early, my, my first half of my life where I lived in Utah, because this is the kind of snow you get out in Utah. You know, it dumps a foot and you handle it and you deal with it, and the schools are generally never closed out there, but out here they're shut down for a week, which is fine, and it is just a mess. And so, I thought what I would do today is do a show called The Day from Hell, which I have about once every 10 or 15 years. Um, I talk about on the, um, on s- on Facebook on my profile that I'm one of the 10 happiest people in the world. Me, Oprah, and eight other people I haven't thought much about. I've had that up for about a dozen years.

[02:39] Speaker 2: I since have added a couple of people to that list that I think are really happy people, and that's b- I guess perhaps one of the reasons why I don't have too many down days, uh, during the year. (coughs) But I did have one on Monday, and I just have to walk you through it. I think as we do this show, this show is about junk removal, getting the junk out of your home and out of your office and out of your garage, and also out of your life. Um, that's kind of what we gear it for, and I tell you, there are some times where you have a day that just doesn't go the way that you wanted it to, and yet if you make it through, it's a reason to celebrate. Sometimes in life you just have those days where nothing goes right despite your best efforts, and if you didn't jump off the Bay Bridge at the end of the day, that's a success, you know? You, you, you celebrate the fact that you hung in there, I guess, is what I'm saying. So I've had days like that, and one of those happened on Monday.

[03:46] Speaker 2: We got a pretty big storm that came in Saturday night. I have three vehicles that I keep out in a parking lot. I have a 16-foot stake-bodied truck that, uh, we use for junk removal. I have a Jeep Liberty SUV that was given to me by a guy who went into the military about a year and a half ago, and with the option of just taking it to the scrapyard. He just needed to do something with it. He couldn't take it with him to the military, of course, and needed something to be done with, with the vehicle. We actually got it inspected to see what kind of situation it was in, decided to pay him what he would've gotten had we just gotten rid of it at the scrapyard, or if we had ... Uh, I think we even went out and looked for some offers from people to see what they would pay for it. It's got some problems, but it is a four-wheel drive vehicle and it's sitting out there, but it has not been registered yet. It's not been licensed yet. It's just been sitting for a number of months.

[04:49] Speaker 2: So that was vehicle number two, and vehicle number three is a Dodge Ram pickup truck that I have used for 10 years at least that has been my pride and joy. It has 280,000 miles on it. It's been the main truck that I used to go out and do hundreds and hundreds of smaller junk removal jobs, Groupon jobs, other things like that. So I've got those three vehicles. Well, then the snow comes. I made the mistake ... I thought it was smart, but I made the mistake Saturday night of parking the big truck under a big tree in the back of the parking lot so that the branches overhanging the bed of the truck would hopefully protect some of the snow from falling into the truck. I thought it was a good idea, but I par- ... So I parked one kind of parallel to the curb. The other two are about 10 feet apart in two parking spaces, and the storm came. They canceled church on Sunday. I got to sleep in on Sunday, which was fabulous, and I watched the NFL playoff games Sunday afternoon.

[05:56] Speaker 2: That was also fabulous. And then come Monday morning-That's when my day started, at about 8:00 in the morning. I went out there to just kind of assess what needs to be done. Well, a, a snowplow had come through the parking lot and had pushed the snow up to the inside edge of the big truck, so it was now snowed in. It was hemmed in by the snowplow, and the snow was maybe three feet high, something like that. So that was vehicle number one. It wasn't goin' anywhere quick. Vehicle number two also had been s- plowed in, but I had parked it perpendicular to the curb, so I just had to work on getting some snow removed from the front of it, uh, on the ground, again, another couple of feet. But it's also a four-wheel drive truck. The problem with the...

[06:52] Speaker 2: The problem with vehicle number two, the pickup truck, is that about in the middle of December, right when I came home one night from work in the big truck, a car was going in reverse in the parking lot at an angle not parallel to the, to the way you would drive, the roadway that you would drive on. It was going, kind of cutting across the lane, accelerating somewhere, like, 10 to 15 miles an hour in reverse. It went wham right into the left front tire bumper of my pickup truck, and I just happened to have come around the corner at the time to have seen it, and I... so I was an eyewitness to it. And so I, you know, got upset obviously 'cause I... thinking the guy was gonna drive off. Well, he didn't. He, he... We swapped, you know, insurance information. But the problem is it pushed the bumper up against the tire, so you couldn't drive the truck. So I've been without use of that truck for about a month.

[08:00] Speaker 2: And then we have vehicle number three, the SUV that's not licensed, that is sitting 10 feet away from the pickup truck. It also has snow in front of it, but it's also a four-wheel drive. Well, we get calls. When the snow comes, we get calls to do snow removal jobs. And last year, and I think maybe two years ago, somebody threw away an electric blue kind of lightweight snow blower that is a fabulous little machine, and I took it around last year in the back of my SUV and did snow removal jobs, which was great because I could get in and out of people's properties easily in a four-wheel drive SUV. Vehicle number four, by the way, is another SUV that was thrown away at a hauling job that we have used to make a lot of money over the last few years. But about four months ago, we were driving with a crew out to do a job and the SUV lost its transmission, so we decided to keep it 'cause we didn't pay anything for it. We actually got paid to take it. It lost its transmission.

[09:12] Speaker 2: We took it to AMCO, uh, finally got it fixed, and, and it's about a $4,000 repair, and, um, I just haven't gone over to pick it up and, and get it paid for. I paid part of it, but I still gotta pay the rest of it. So that one is out of commission. Otherwise, I would have just hopped in that one and gone and, you know, to do snow removal. So I'm sitting there with three vehicles. The big one is hemmed in and is not the best to drive around in the snow anyway. The SUV is not licensed. That's a problem. The pickup truck is licensed, but it's got a bumper jammed up against the tire. So I... A- and again, it's just this miserable winter weather, you know, crap that you run into, and now you're trying to kind of get back to normal. Um, a young couple was out trying to get their car out of a parking stall, and I went over and helped them with a shovel and some other stuff to just help them get their car out. A lot of people get confused in snowy conditions.

[10:19] Speaker 2: They don't know what to do to get a vehicle unstuck, but the last thing you do is floor the gas and spin the tires a lot. That just digs you deeper into the snow, but that's ty- typically what a lot of people do. Anyway, the, uh... I went over and said, "Hey, I need a jump start on this Jeep, and I'll help you get your vehicle out if you'll just come over and give me a jump start. I have cables and everything if you'll do that." And they said, "Yeah, that's fine." Well, we got their car unstuck, and it got out, and they pulled over, and I hooked up my cables to start up the Jeep. Wouldn't start. Tried it for a few minutes, had them wait five minutes, let them charge up. Wouldn't start. So that didn't work. Sent the other folks on their way, unplugged the cables, and called AAA. AAA came over, and in the meantime, I thought, "You know, I've got this other pickup truck here.

[11:20] Speaker 2: If I can just get it, you know, get the bumper off the tire, maybe then I can play with that." So I turned it on, got the power steering on and stuff, played with the tire, the wheel a little bit, and sure enough, I got it away from the bumper, and then I took a come along, which is kind of a ratcheting chain cable assembly. I took one of those that somebody threw away from a hauling job, and I put one hook around the inside of the bumper that was damaged on the pickup truck. I put the other hook around the towing, um, hook that is built into the front bumper of the Jeep.... in case, you know, it, it, it gets stuck and somebody needs to tow it out or whatever. So I, I was kinda proud of myself. I s- I took that come-along and did it that way, and then I just started to ratchet the come-along, and sure enough, the bumper started to bend back outwards the way it's supposed to be. So I, I did it about five times.

[12:23] Speaker 2: I had to kind of go over and, and, you know, undo it, which is not that easy. Undo it, loosen it up, go adjust it on the truck again, hook it back up, fire ... I mean, crank it again. And I kind of just manually kept bending that part of the bumper out. Well, pretty soon, it was bent out enough that I had about three inches of clearance for the wheel regardless of which way I turned it. That means it's drivable. I mean, it's not ideal, but it's drivable, and it's licensed and insured and all that good stuff. In the meantime ... So I, I was proud of myself. I got the pickup truck, looked like, "Hey, maybe this will work," but it was full in the back of a whole bunch of bags of junk removal that we had thrown in the truck a couple of weeks ago from our big truck, and that back of that needed to be emptied. Well, AAA shows up. I'm a member of AAA. I'm glad I am. They showed up. They came in and went over to the Jeep and put their charging battery device on it.

[13:36] Speaker 2: I hopped in the car and turned the key, and immediately it started up. And I told the AAA guy, I said, "You know, I know I shouldn't do this, but my thought was just given how crappy this weather is and that this Jeep is a four-wheel drive, I'm thinking of taking the plates off the pickup truck and putting it on the Jeep just so it looks legit when it goes around town, and go out and use it to do some snow removal jobs so I can keep making money." And the AAA guy said, "Hey, I don't blame ya. I get it. I understand." Well, that was my plan that I was not gonna disclose to anybody, but I'm telling you about it here 'cause it's, like, history now. But the problem is when we, when he tested the battery, he said, "Hey, your battery's only a year and a half old, and it, it, it, it's 100%. It will 100% take a charge if you've got enough juice, you know, trying to start it up. And it's only used up about 46% of its life." So I was thinking, "You know what?

[14:34] Speaker 2: I'm need, I need a new battery," but I didn't. The guy was really cool. He said, "I don't wanna sell you a battery that you're not gonna use." And I appreciated that. Well, it would start up really well. It would run for two or three, four minutes, and then it died. Once it died, I went in to turn the key and start it up again, and I got absolutely nothing. So the AAA guy was baffled. So my, my goal of trying to get this Jeep out for 24 hours or 48 hours to just make some money doing snow removal didn't work. And not only that, we could start it up just fine once he attached his super powered charger to it, but for some reason, it wouldn't keep running, un being ... I don't know what the, what the deal is. Well, now I got a pickup truck with a ... that, that is apparently operable. I've got a Jeep that we can't get it to stay on. The other truck is swamped in the snow. So pickup truck was now the answer. At least I had a vehicle I could get out. I put it in four-wheel drive.

[15:43] Speaker 2: I pulled it out. We got it out, and I was very happy. Now I needed to empty the back of the truck. I drove a mile, two miles maybe, down the street to the transfer station. The gates, I kinda thought the gates might be closed or something, but they weren't. They were open. Looked like business as usual. I pulled up to the, to the scales to empty the truck, and they waved at me and said, "I'm sorry. We're closed." And I went, "Oh, crap." Um, so I couldn't empty the back of the truck, which had a bunch of stuff in it, and that was not the worst thing that could've happened. I just couldn't empty it. So I went over to the Public Storage facility where I have the storage units and where I keep the snowblower machine, and the parking lot at Public Storage had not been plowed. And the s- the snow is about a foot deep, and it's icy on the top and on the bottom. It's got a crust of ice on the top 'cause it's been so cold. It's 18 degrees outside, and it's frozen on the bottom.

[16:55] Speaker 2: So you can't just drive in there. Even with a four-wheel-drive vehicle, you can't just drive in there and go get to your unit. They had not plowed anything yet. So I parked at the Chinese restaurant next to it in the parking lot there, walked over on the crusty snow, um, got the super- got the, the gentleman that works there, the attendant, to, um, help me out with something, and I went over to my storage unit to get the snowblower. Not sure where I was gonna put it because I couldn't empty the back (laughs) of the truck. Wouldn't you know that in the storage unit, the snowblower is in the back right-hand corner of the storage unit buried on the bottom under another couple of foot of equipment and other stuff. Well, I had to get that thing out, which I did. So I got it out. Then I had to walk it back out of the storage facility, back over to the Chinese restaurant. I put it in the back of the truck. I s- I strapped it down so it wouldn't go anywhere, and at least I had my snowblower.

[18:02] Speaker 2: One of the problems I now had is I need ... It's an electric snowblower. I needed another 12-gauge, 100-foot extension cord. Twelve gauge means it holds a lot of juice in the cord, which is what you need to operate one of these snowblowers, and those babies are $119 for a 100-foot extension cord at Home DepotI made the mistake of selling some tools to a guy a few months earlier, six months earlier, and one of the things he wanted to buy was that extension cord. And ironically, at the time, I forgot, I don't know why, but I forgot that's the cord that you use to do your snowblowing, and I sold it to him for probably 50 bucks. Dumb move. So my cord's gone, so I go back over to Home Depot. I gotta pick up another cord, which is 120 bucks. I now have the cord. I have the snowblower. I have the truck.

[18:59] Speaker 2: It's, it's operating just fine as I turn it left or right, and I'm off to do a snowblowing job with a, with a back full of, uh, uh, a pickup truck full of black bags and other trash that's there that also has a foot of snow on it. Now seriously, I mean, I should've been a doctor. That would've been easier. But that's part one of this show, the day from hell. Um, but I, I still had the truck. It was about 2:00 now. It took me six hours to get one vehicle freed up from the parking lot. I won't even bother going into the stories of how I tried to get the big truck out. I tried to kind of pull it forward, pull it back. It's got a lift on the back of it that's hydraulic. I even, I even put that all the way down and backed it up thinking I could pick up the snow that way and, and undig myself in a reverse position. That didn't work. The snow was too high. But at least I now had one vehicle out. I've got the snowblower.

[20:04] Speaker 2: I've got the extension cord, and now I head over to do a job in Darnestown, Maryland, which I will start telling you about when we get back in about 60 seconds. There is a good moral to this story, but I just want you to know, um, I'll give you the moral at the end (laughs) of this story, but boy, was this one of those days. I could not believe it. So it's now Monday at about 2:00, and I'm on my way to go do my first snow removal job after six hours in 18-degree weather, trying to get one of three vehicles unstuck. That was my morning and part of my afternoon. We'll take a break here for a second, and I'll be back in about a minute. We'll tell you some more stories about how to get the junk out of people's driveways when (laughs) it snows, and out of your own life, and how you handle a day from hell. I'm your host, Alan Cook. Uh, we'll be back in just a minute.

[20:58] Speaker 1: (Instrumental music) Have you ever hired one of those expensive junk removal companies, then wondered what they did with the stuff, especially the good stuff? At 1-800-JUNK REFUND, we junk the junk. Recycle stuff like metal and wire, donate items, and get you receipts, and put up for sale the good stuff. And if it sells, you get some money back. Cynthia paid $375 for junk removal and got $3,200 back. Would you like to know how she did it? Tune in to the Junk Refund Show with your host Alan J. Cook every Thursday at 3:00 PM Eastern Time to get the junk not only out of your home, but also out of your life.

[21:58] Speaker 2: Hey, welcome back to the Junk Refund Show. We are talking about snow removal because that's, uh, that can be junky stuff around people's yards sometimes, and one of the things we do is get rid of that as well. And it's a big problem in the Washington, DC area right now because of all the snow we've gotten and the fact that the temperatures are about 18 degrees and are gonna stay there for about another five or six days it sounds like. So I finally got the equipment that I needed ready to go. I was supposed to do a job, a snow removal job, Monday morning at 10:00. A guy named Tom called me. He said, "Hey, are you on your way over?" I said, "Hey, I'm trying to get a vehicle unstuck, and I can't tell you for sure if this is gonna work and when it's gonna work." Um, he said, "Well, I gotta know what time you'll be here, or I gotta go with another option." I said, "I can't tell you what time I'm gonna be there. I don't know.

[22:51] Speaker 2: You're probably best off going with another option." Well, he did. So I'd had another lady call me, a lady named Mary, that said, "Hey, can you come Monday?" And I said, "Yes, after I do this other job, I can." So I just went straight to Mary's, Mary's job. But here's the deal. The area that both Tom and Mary live in have 200-foot-long driveways, and these are older folks. They're not gonna get out and shovel this stuff. They're smart. They're gonna pay somebody else to come and do it. And so I was there. I hooked up the cord. I hooked up the snowblower. I haven't used it in a year. Turned it on, and boy does it fire right up. It's a great little thing. I was paid to take it originally when somebody threw it away. Now I use it to make money, and I just love that whole, uh, equation. But, so I started on her job, and all was well. I needed to use... And I saw in her garage that she had, um, uh, what amounted to about another 100-foot-long heavy gauge extension cord.

[24:00] Speaker 2: So I was able to get, get that, but it took me two and a half hours to clear this 200-foot-long driveway, and it's a hundred bucks an hour, so it's a $250 job. I did it nonstop. Um, I've got a snow shovel, and I've got a regular shovel, both of which were thrown away by other people at their hauling jobs, and I've got the snow removal-... uh, the snow machine, which was thrown away, the snowblower. So all in all, I'm out there and I'm now making money, and it is now somewhere around 5:00 in the evening. No, it's even past that. And as I was going to this job, I noticed at the house before them, across the river, there's a husband and wife team out there in the driveway, playing around trying to shovel their walkway and it's, or their, their driveway and it's not going well. And I just rolled down the window and said, "Hey, I'm in the neighborhood. I, I can help you out with this after I do these, this other, you know, person's job." "Oh, that'd be great.

[25:05] Speaker 2: That's awesome." So I said, "Okay." So I went up to do the first job, two and a half hours it took me, and the problem is, I finished it at about 7:00 in the evening, something like that, so I guess I probably actually got there at about 4:00, something like 4:00 or 4:30. I finished it, but as a part of what you do, you wanna spray or throw out some rock salt or ice melt on the driveway to melt the rest of the stuff that's there and just kinda keep, try to keep it dry. Well, good luck finding some ice melt at any of the stores in the Washington, DC area. I went to a big, uh, grocery store, they were out. I went to Safeway, they were out. I went to 7-Eleven, they were out. I tried seven or eight different places just to get some rock salt, nobody had any. I went to CVS, they were out. Um, I stopped in at couple of gas stations, they were out. I called, I think it was Giant Food that I called, which is where I got some last year when everybody seemed to be out.

[26:15] Speaker 2: I called them and this nice lady said, "Try BP gas station in Germantown." I didn't ask her why she said that, I just went with what she said. I said, "Okay." Well, I called, I, I put in the GPS "BP gas station," headed up there, and as I pulled into the gas station, there was one bag of rock salt sitting outside on a wooden pallet. I grabbed that one, I went inside, I said, "Do you have any more rock salt?" He goes, "Yeah, I got one more bag right over there." And sure enough, there was another bag. I bought both bags, I bought the last two bags that he had. This was about 7:30 at night. I now have two bags of rock salt, I think it was 15 bucks a bag, something like that. Last year I bought it at a grocery store for about $5 a bag. Anyway, I got it, I headed back to the lady's place, to job number one, and I went ahead, and I asked the gentleman at the BP if I could get a paper cup.

[27:16] Speaker 2: He says, "Yeah, I'll give you a paper cup." And I used the cup to scoop the rock salt out, and then walked all over the driveway again, spread the rock salt out so that it would try to dry up the remaining, you know, ice and stuff. The gentleman, Mary's husband, was coming home that night, and so she was very anxious to get the driveway all cleared and she couldn't believe I got it done. And she said, "God bless you," when I told her I was on my way back with some rock salt. And when you're done with that kind of a jo- Can you imagine, two and a half hours nonstop, fighting Mother Nature, trying to get snow off of a 200-foot-long driveway? I mean, that's just nuts. That's the kinda thing a crew of, like, four guys takes on. But, and this is at the end of all these frustrations of what happened earlier in the day, but at least I'll make $250 and at least I accomplished something, right, that day. That was kinda how I looked at it.

[28:21] Speaker 2: But you stand there with, with what's kind of a small snowblower and you look at a 200-foot driveway that's eight feet wide and the snow is a foot high, in a lot of places it's frozen or starting to get frozen, you feel like you're never gonna get done, like this is never gonna end. This is the nightmare from hell, right? Well, I got it done, I put the snowblower back in. The, the client, Mary, was thrilled, very happy. She said, "Oh, by the way, the weather report is we might get another 26 inches this Saturday." She said, "Well, I'm sure we'll be calling you back." (laughs) But her driveway was done, the little snow machine worked, my new extension cords worked, and I left with a check for $250. Now, I'm here to tell you, after two and a half hours in 18-degree weather, fighting the elements, all you wanna do now at about 8:30 at night is go home, take a hot shower and eat something. Right? And that's exactly what I did.

[29:27] Speaker 2: And for probably from 8:00 AM until probably 4:00 or 5:00 PM on Monday, it was the day from hell. I mean, it just, nothing worked, and it was one letdown after another. I mean, you'd think when AAA shows up that everything's gonna be good. They could, uh, they could've replaced the battery, but the guy said, "I don't think that's what you need," and I appreciate his, his, uh, opinion. And it was just a mess, right? And they come up and you still don't have a working vehicle. Um, I was thrilled that the come-along worked and they bent the bumper back out (laughs) . They're sending me a check for a couple of thousand dollars to fix the bumper. I may have fixed it myself, so we'll see. But at least it's that idea that you survived, you didn't quit, and you did something positive when nothing went right for a good six to eight hours before that, in 18-degree weather.Now, maybe there's a sermon here on, you know, how you stick to it to get something done without giving up.

[30:44] Speaker 2: Maybe there's, um, you know, a, a concept about not quitting, using your adrenaline, just believing that things can get done, you know, whatever you want to say. Um, but I just could not believe the effort, the physical effort, the exhaustion. In fact, Monday night when I was done, I went over to the grocery store to just get some groceries to bring home. I bought a two-liter bottle of diet A&W Root Beer, which is kind of our family go-to soda, and some other food, and I just came home, and even while I was at the store, as I was looking at the stuff on the shelves, I just started catching myself taking deep breaths through my, through my mouth, just inhaling and exhaling, trying to kind of... You know, you, you get exhausted and you try to catch, you, you slow your body down a little bit and try and just catch up with your breathing and just kind of slow back down to normal, and sometimes you have to do heavy breaths to make that happen.

[31:54] Speaker 2: That's what I was doing in the grocery store on, you know, some aisle, and I was just trying to slow myself down a little bit and keep myself upright (laughs) and get some food and get home, right? Well, I couldn't... I just couldn't believe the way that day happened. And still, with all the mess and all the problems and all the letdowns and all the effort and all the shoveling I did and all this stuff, still, I came home with a check, right? And that made me feel good. That was positive. And I didn't quit, and I didn't stop, and I didn't say, "Oh well, this day is not going to work out. I'm going to go back to bed." Right? I mean, I'm a Utah kid. I know what 18-degree weather is, and I know what a foot of snow is, and I know what ice is. You know, I grew up with it. So, you know, I always appreciate a good challenge, but my gosh, trying to just get a vehicle out for six hours, trying to get one vehicle out just so I can go do some work and make some money puts me six hours behind.

[33:10] Speaker 2: But it worked and I got it done, and I at least got one job done, and the lady was thrilled, and I got the snowblower out, and I got another extension cord, and, you know, I got one out of two jobs done. I told the people that I had passed earlier that, you know, I would come back after I did the first one. I was so exhausted after the first one. It was 8:30 at night. I didn't even want to dr-... I drove past their house, but I didn't stop and go see them because I had, would have had to walk up through a foot of snow to get up to their... Another 200 feet to get up to their driveway and their garage. I just didn't want to mess with it. I thought, "I'll just get a hold of them tomorrow." So I came home. I got home about 8:45 at night. I took a shower. I just pulled some food out and some soda, and I just devoured any food that I had. I didn't stop for lunch during the day, (laughs) you know? I... During the two and a half hours that I did the, the driveway, I didn't stop for water.

[34:13] Speaker 2: I didn't have anything to eat. I just kept going, and I'm 67, right? And I'm shoveling a foot worth of snow, or doing it with a snowblower to clean this driveway off at seven o'clock at night in 18-degree weather at the age of 67. So, you know, on one hand, you could stand back and look at that and go, "Well, somebody didn't plan very well." (laughs) But, you know, it's more the question of how do you get through the day from hell? And that's what I did, and it worked. And at nine o'clock that night, Monday night, my alma mater BYU's basketball team played ranked number 13 in the country, played number one Arizona in Provo, Utah at BYU's home court And even though they were down by 19 points at one point in the game, they brought it back to within a couple of points with, like, a minute left, and they ended up losing by, I think, by three points to the top team in the country, and that brought back some memories.

[35:22] Speaker 2: I enjoyed just sitting there and watching that, and then at the end of that, it was lights out, man. This day, even though I accomplished something, even though I got a check, which made me feel a lot better, I frankly survived, and I was thrilled that I just survived because sometimes that's what it's all about. And I, I just... I, I thought about making a journal entry and just write down step by step everything that went wrong. It was dozens and dozens of things that went wrong. Little steps here, little steps there. I think I fell twice during the day on the ice. Um, you know, just things that just didn't go right. And trying to get one truck out didn't work, you know, for an hour and a half, didn't work. Try to get another truck started, wouldn't stay started, didn't work, even with AAA's assistance. Finally got the third one out, mild brilliance on my part to get it out, and it worked, and it got the job done, um, and it got me around, and I was thrilled.

[36:33] Speaker 2: So I'll be back to tell you the last part of the show. I'll tell you about yester-... I'll tell you about Tuesday. (laughs... where I did another 200-foot-long (laughs) driveway that was even worse than the one I just told you about. We're talking about how to get the junk out of your life, which is perseverance, don't give up, have some grit, believe that you can get it done, and work your butt off, and you can survive and good things can happen. That's the moral of the story. Um, I'm your host, Alan Cook. We're talking about junk removal. I'll tell you a little bit more about junk removal in this last segment of the show. But we're talking about the day from hell, which was Monday, which I, I will do a show like this once about every 10 years, because the other days are just not the days from hell, they're the days from heaven. But this one was the day from hell on Monday, but even it had a good outcome. You're listening to The Junk Refund Show.

[37:23] Speaker 2: I'll be back in about a minute with the last segment of the show.

[37:28] Speaker 1: (Instrumental music.) Have you ever hired one of those expensive junk removal companies, then wondered what they did with the stuff, especially the good stuff? At 1-800-JUNK REFUND, we junk the junk, recycle stuff like metal and wire, donate items and get you receipts, and put up for sale the good stuff. And if it sells, you get some money back. Cynthia paid $375 for junk removal and got $3,200 back. Would you like to know how she did it? Tune in to The Junk Refund Show with your host, Alan J. Cook, every Thursday at 3:00 PM Eastern Time to get the junk not only out of your home, but also out of your life.

[38:27] Speaker 2: Hey, welcome back to The Junk Refund Show. We're talking about snowbound Washington, DC, and what my week has been like as a snow removal guy, um, trying to get what I guess we'd call some of the junk off of people's driveways. Um, but it's been, it's been an interesting week. It, I, I, I titled this show The Day From Hell because that's what Monday was for me. But I made it through, I survived, and I even came home with a check that day, when a lot of people just didn't go to work at all, because they don't need to, or the government was shut down, or whatever. Um, but that brings me to the second job that I did for the first people whose house I passed on my way to job number one on Monday afternoon. A husband and wife team out in their driveway, 200-foot-long driveway, with some shovels, and you can tell they're not making much progress. And I just rolled down the window and said, "Hey, I'm going to your neighbor's house.

[39:30] Speaker 2: When I'm done with that, I can come back and do it here." And the guy says, "How much is it?" I said, "It's a minimum of $50 and it's $100 an hour." And he jumped at that, right, and said, "That's awesome. Just come on back when you're done with them." Well, I was done with them at 8:30 in the e- at night, and I didn't want to talk to anybody, so I just drove home Monday night. But I didn't want to leave these people hanging, so I went back out there Tuesday at about noon. I, I first took the, the pickup truck that ha- was full of stuff in the back, a bunch of bags and snow on top of it, and a bunch of crap. The cou- the Montgomery County dump, the transfer station opened at 10 o'clock Tuesday morning.

[40:10] Speaker 2: One of the good things that happened to me Tuesday is that when I went in there, you get weighed in on the scales, then you give them a deposit on your credit card, then you get weighed out, and then they charge you $70 a ton for whatever you dr- dropped off, as long as it's more than 500 pounds. I know the guys over there, I've worked with them for 20 years, and when I pulled in on the scales, one of the guys that was shoveling snow off of the, another scale, just called to me and says, "Hey, what do you have?" I said, "Just a bunch of trash in bags and stuff." He says, "Okay, come on in." And I know the load was more than 500 pounds. I should have had to pay $25 or $30 or maybe $40 or something to get it emptied, but they just waved me in. So I thought, "Cool, this might be, this might be a better day." I got the, I got the truck emptied. It didn't cost me a lot of money to do that. Uh, in fact, it cost me nothing.

[41:05] Speaker 2: And then I went from there with my remaining bag and a half of rock salt that I had purchased after a dozen attempts to find some the night before. And I took my electric snowblower and I went back out to Darnestown Road in a d- development called Spring Meadows where they have 200-foot-long driveways, a lot of these people. And went up through a foot of snow, which is now frozen. The top ch- the top portion of the snow is now frozen because it's been, you know, between zero and 15 degrees for 24 to 48 hours. And the bottom layer of the snow sitting on the asphalt is also frozen, and the stuff in the middle is soft. So you probably have two or three inches of frozen stuff on the top, a couple of inches of frozen stuff on the bottom, and then you've got light, feathery snow in the middle. It's like a frozen Oreo sandwich almost, you know? And top part's frozen, bottom part's frozen, middle part's soft. Well, the problem is... And when I went to the door, the lady...

[42:19] Speaker 2: I, I, I mean, it was... the... you can't just walk up to the door. You have... it's like climbing up Everest to get to the door. The, the walks aren't shoveled. The top of the snow is now frozen solid ice. Gotta be careful, or you, you know, bust a knee or something. I made my way up. I slipped once when I got up towards the top. I rang the doorbell. She came to the door and I said, "Hey, I'm the guy that, you know, drove by last night or yesterday and told you I'd come help you out." And oh, she was thrilled.She said, "Great, we'd love..." I said, "Do you want me to still do it?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Okay, great, 'cause I didn't wanna leave you hanging." Now, there's a principle of business and life about not leaving people hanging that says something about your integrity. You know, w- I didn't have to go back. I didn't know these people's names. I couldn't call them, you know, et cetera.

[43:09] Speaker 2: But I told 'em the night before, or the afternoon before, that I would come back and do their walkway, and then I didn't show up, 'cause it was too late. By the time I finished the other one, I was too tired to even go to their door. So I'm back there now at about noon on Tuesday, and the problem now is that you can't just attack this with a snowblower the way that I did 24 hours earlier. It's now been frozen twice as long. So I started at the lady's, top of her driveway where her garage is. I plugged in the extension cord. I took the snowblower and I just started making my way through to see how it was going to work. And you gotta be careful that you don't bust the snowblower or something in the process. It was slow, it was tedious, but it was making progress, and I could tell that I'm only gonna make it about a fourth of the way down to the end of the driveway before I'm gonna have to do this by hand.

[44:10] Speaker 2: Because I have a regular shovel, I have a snow shovel, and I have the snowblower, and the top of the snow is now caked in ice, and it's heavy and it's thick. And I learned after about 45 minutes of messing around with the snowblower that the only way I'm really gonna get this done is to break up this ice by, by chipping away at it from the top, basically stabbing it from the top with a regular pointed shovel, in which case it breaks up into giant cubes, meaning a foot square, chunks of ice is a better description. And as you stand there, you, you've done about a fourth of the driveway, and you look down this driveway until the end where the street is, and that street's been cleared, it's 150 feet of ice and snow that you have to clear. It's still 18-degree weather, and you can't do it with your snowblower. And what happens is you put together a plan by, by sheer dumb luck and common sense and, you know, try it, try it, try again.

[45:24] Speaker 2: You start on the right-hand side with your pointed shovel, and you just start jamming down vertically into the snow and the ice about a foot away from where it's been cleared, and it takes you about 10 or 12 shots like that to make it all the way across to try to free up another one-foot section of snow and ice that you can then change the, the angle of the shovel to a, a, um, kind of a parallel line that runs parallel to the edge of the driveway. And you come back and jam it three or four more times, and pretty soon you end up with, let's say, six or seven large chunks of snow and ice. So the, the, the benefit to the ice is that it will break up if you stab at it. The disadvantage is, it's much heavier than just regular snow. So you take the one shovel and you go through and you chip away at another one-foot section.

[46:32] Speaker 2: Then you punch it again to chip it into blocks of ice, and then you take the regular snow shovel and you shovel away about six sh- shovelful of chunks of ice and snow and throw it to the one side or the other. And after you do that, you've progressed one foot towards the end of the 150 remaining feet of the driveway. Does that make sense? So even when you do that, even when you've done another foot, you still look at where your goal is and what it's gonna take to get there, and it, you feel like you've made no progress, and you feel like there's, "This is insane. There's no way I'm gonna get this done." There are people across the street that have large snowblowers that are out doing their 200-foot driveways with a snowblower.

[47:24] Speaker 2: There are people driving by with pickup trucks and snowblades on the front headed to somewhere to do some job, but this is another job for me, another chance for me to make some money, and I was determined, you know, "I'm not leaving till I get this done and I get another check," basically. It took me two hours and 20 minutes to, to finish that driveway, and there were even, the guys that were across the street using their snowbl- snowblower machine, a big one, more of a commercial-grade one, a gas-powered one, they had been playing around with their driveway. They came out and took it up the street to the next house, which I guess where one of 'em lives. This was probably a neighbor that was helping another neighbor or something. I'm across the street in the meantime doing this by hand, and they just, you know, they didn't come over and say, "Hey, can we help you?" Or, "Would you like to use this?" Or whatever.

[48:25] Speaker 2: I didn't expect 'em to do that, and I'm not sure I would've taken 'em up on the offer. I was just kind of like, "Okay, I, I know what I gotta do. I'm determined to get this done. I wanna make some money. I didn't come out here to only get half of it done. And it's getting later and later and darker and darker, and I'm doing this sucker by hand while the snow machine that I have is sitting there idle.And yet, it worked and I got it done, and I was thrilled and happy as can be. By the time I finished it, uh, I can't tell you how happy the lady was that, you know, gladly paid for it, 220 bucks this time. A second driveway in 24 hours that I had done mostly by hand in 18-degree weather, and each one took two and a half hours. I mean, that's just ... That- that's insane is what it is.

[49:31] Speaker 2: But I did it and it worked and I got another check, and I will tell you that in this kind of weather, my go-to place for lunch is Wendy's to get their large chili with an ice water, and not only does it warm your hands up as you're holding the chili, but it ... I just, I've always liked chili. So here's a little plug for Wendy's chili with a free ice water that I did, and I've done pretty much every day for the last week since it's been so darn cold. Um, I've been thrilled to do that and to just have that extra heat but ... And that was what I was working on. You, you know, maybe a muffin and some orange juice for breakfast, that was it, a, a large chili from Wendy's for lunch, and then I go out and I bust my butt for two and a half hours clearing off these driveways. Now, today, um, W- Wednesday, we went out and did a hauling job for a lady that needed to be out of her apartment in Laurel, Maryland by Friday. We went out, took the big truck. We've ...

[50:40] Speaker 2: I finally got the big truck out Wednesday morning. That took about an hour to chip away and get it all out, but that worked. Finally got it out, picked up a buddy of mine, and we went over to Laurel, Maryland, and we loaded up a truck full of stuff. We went back to the dump. This was 19 and 12 and 11, that's 23 plus 19, that's 42 steps that we had to go up and down one way to clean out her apartment, her beds, her furniture. She was moving to Toronto and needed to be out by Friday. That was a $800 job, which was great, made money there, and, uh, that was on Wednesday. Um, they canceled the Bible study class Wednesday night down at the church that I'm pretty involved in every week. I was thrilled that I didn't have to drive down to DC Wednesday night, and I, last night, just came home and rested and got some food and everything was good. So I, I, I just ...

[51:45] Speaker 2: You know, there, there are, there are times where things don't go right and it's easy to just quit, and, you know, say, "To heck with it. This isn't fair." You know, whatever. Um, real integrity, if I can say so, not to pat my own back, but, uh, y- you know, grit is the thing that they've done studies, they determined that's the number one reason entrepreneurs succeed is because they have grit. And some of them do. The ones that succeed and hang in there and are successful don't quit. They just keep at it. And, you know, when you tell somebody you're gonna do something and you eventually do it against all odds, you still get it done, that guy wants you back next year, right? So the lady that we did the job for, the hauling job on Wednesday was thrilled, and, and everything went great there. I set up a job this morning. Somebody needed to get a couple of couches moved in Brookeville, Maryland. I called one of my buddies to have him come help me, 10 o'clock.

[52:58] Speaker 2: Uh, I, um, the, the older couple said, "What time do you want to be here tomorrow?" I said, "How about 9:00 in the morning?" And the husband (laughs) said ... I can't remember the exact word he used, but he said something like, "That's just not common sense. How about 10:00?" (laughs) And so I went, "Okay." So I went over there at 10:00 and I told my buddy, "Meet me there at 10:00. It's a couple of couches. I could use your help and then we'll go from there." Well, my buddy never showed up. And so I'm there with the truck this morning, 10:00, got there at 9:58 They showed me the first couch, kind of a big, heavy couch. Thank heavens, not a sleeper sofa, just a regular couch. I got it out, I got it on the truck. Then they showed me the second one. It was, it was a gift from God because it was a bamboo, lightweight, kind of a wicker bamboo couch, much easier to get out.

[53:50] Speaker 2: I got those two out, $200 for about 30 minutes of work compared to $250 for two and a half hours of work shoveling the snow. So somebody's not pricing his services properly apparently, or maybe snow removal the way I'm doing it is just a, a dumb idea. I don't know. But came away with $800 yesterday for that job. They were thrilled. Got $200 this morning for picking up the couches in about 30 minutes. Sent a text message to my buddy, said, "Hey, um, sorry I missed you. I'm off to do another job and it's not gonna take very long. Then I got a radio show at 3:00. I think I'm good for the rest of the day." And gotta be honest with you, I didn't mind that because it saves me 60 to, 60 to $100 of labor that I otherwise would have paid if I had kept this kid with me for a couple of hours that I get to pocket myself, and I still got the work doneSo, you know, sometimes you show up, and I've done this hundreds of times, you show up by yourself to do a job.

[54:58] Speaker 2: Sometimes it's planned, sometimes it's not. And people look at you and one of the first things they say is, "You're not going to be able to do this by yourself." Well, I get kind of tired of that after a few... hearing it for a few hundred times, knowing that every time, I still got the job done. And so I just kind of let it bounce off my back, and I say, "Yeah, it'll, it'll be all right. Show me where your couches are." Well, I got them done this morning. Got that done, went down to a great company called Closet America, where they fabricate and build and design closets for people, and upgrade closets. And they cut a lot of strip aluminum and strip steel for shelving and for building these units, and they call me, you know, once every, what? Week and a half, 10 days or something. I go down and haul away all their extra steel and aluminum that they've cut. That was job number two today. Got that done, got that to the scrap yard. Everything went well there. Come back here.

[56:01] Speaker 2: Um, anyway, and, and it's, you know, it... There's just a great feeling of accomplishment when you kind of go up against the odds, sometimes by yourself, and you still come out of it successful. You may not be a millionaire, but you didn't quit, you didn't let it stop you, and you kept going. There's something to be said for overcoming those kind of challenges, and that's what my week has been like this week, including on Monday, the day from hell. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are more like the days from heaven, which I normally have, and I'm thrilled to be on the BBS Radio network for the radio show each week where we try to teach you how to get the junk not on- only out of your homes and your garages and your lives, but also off of your driveways and your steps when you get a foot and a half of snow that's frozen, which is what we're playing around with in the Washington DC area right now.

[56:57] Speaker 2: Anyway, overcoming the trials is what it's all about, and sticking to it until you overcome them is one of the great things you can do in life, and one of the most rewarding things you can do in life. Trust me. I've been there, I live it, I do it all the time, and it's one little bit of truth that I can add to the world. Uh, trust me, it's a great accomplishment even though it's not a million dollar paycheck. Does that make sense? And it's all about being happy anyway, so if that brings you happiness, you're successful. Thanks for listening, folks. Hope this has been helpful, and maybe you even picked up some tips on how to get rid of some of the snow and ice on your driveways. We'll be back next week with another Junk Refund Show where we teach you how to get the junk not only out of your homes and offices, but also out of your lives. I'm Alan Cook, your host. Thanks for listening.

[57:49] Speaker 2: Have a great week, everybody, and stay warm

[57:52] Speaker 1: (Instrumental music) Thank you for listening to the Junk Refund Show, the longest running junk removal radio show on the air. Join us next week as we discuss innovative ways to declutter your home, your business, and your life using 20 years of junk removal experience. Find out why we give out free ice cream gift cards to our clients too! In upcoming shows, we will explore how to get the junk out of your relationships, your spiritual life, your waistline, even your travel life. Plus, call in with questions and situations you would like some help with. At 1-800-JUNK REFUND, we are committed to bringing the next generation of junk removal because not all junk is junk. See you next week on the Junk Refund Show every Thursday afternoons at 3:00 PM Eastern Time right here on BBS Radio TV.

[59:07] Speaker 1: (Instrumental music)