Benton County hosted its annual "Amnesty Day" on Saturday and, hoo boy, I didn't realize exactly what I was getting myself into before I showed up to get rid of one old television. It turns out Benton County residents had a lot A LOT of junk to get rid of.

I first showed up around 7:30 a.m., which was 30 minutes after the event started. I saw a line stretching from the entrance to Sauk Rapids-Rice High School to the roundabout and thought to myself "Eh, that's not that bad, I can wait it out."

As it turned out, the part of the line that I saw was a small, small fraction of the actual cars in line, which really stretched all the way to Granite City Speedway on Golden Spike Road.

I was using my wife's car (the TV wouldn't fit in my tiny Honda), and she had a hair appointment at nine a.m., so I knew I wouldn't have enough time. I figured I'd come back around noon with the hope the line had died down.

Narrator: It did not die down.

I got to my spot in line in between a pair of pickup trucks near the Speedway and waited. And waited. And waited. I ended up waiting exactly 3:18:38. Three hours, eighteen minutes and 38 seconds.

About an hour and a half into my excursion, I realized just how woefully unprepared I was for this outing. I didn't bring any lunch and hadn't eaten, I only brought one bottle of water, etc. Plus it was roughly 5,312 degrees outside and since I was using someone else's car I didn't want to leave it running with the air conditioner on the whole time.

Then I discovered a bunch of bottled water in the backseat. This would turn out to be a blessing and a curse, as my thirst was quenched but I immediately had to pee. So I held it for over two hours.

I cannot tell you, friends, that I did not consider all options: peeing into a bottle, running into the woods, turning around and going home... even just peeing my pants were all on the table. Fortunately, my bladder turned in a career-best performance and sustained me to the bitter end.

Shout out to Benton County for putting on this event and staying well past the 2 p.m. posted end time. I dropped off my television at about 3:30 and there was still a huge line waiting.

Dave Overlund
Dave Overlund
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