Cactus Jack’s, our still-operating local arcade, occasionally puts old video game cabinets — carcasses, really — out by the street as trash.

I say “carcasses” because Cactus Jack’s is a business, and what ends up out in the trash pile is almost always literally trash. You might find a good harness here or a joystick there, but by and large, their garbage is garbage. Most anything worth scavenging has probably already been picked, and the cabinets that find their way to the curb are often water-logged, rotten, or worse. Any hopes of using one of these for a MAME cabinet are squelched the moment you get near them.

Sometimes when I see junk sitting curbside, especially on Sunday morning before the place opens, I’ll pull over and walk around for a few minutes. I know these cabinets will never work again, but it’s still kind of neat to look them over and appreciate them for what they once were.