Beer Crate Or Bottle Deposit

This must be the last photo from the past, March 2016(!) that I didn't show yet. Because I messed up on getting the full profit. Not proud.

Found the beer crate complete with 24 fitting bottles in front of my door. Left by whom? You'd think Airbnb tourists, but I'm not sure. Because did the dust on the bottles (see picture down) collect in my place or was it there? Too long ago. Worth € 3,90 in deposit. Easy to bring inside, a bit harder to load on om my bike and bring to the shop. I hesitated and left it in the yard. Protected by cover of upstairs balcony though. But left it there over winter. And that's really silly, because when a sick cat makes my adrenaline rush, I'm perfectly capable of loading up an even larger sized carrier with a moving and anxious animal in it to bring to the vet's office, same distance or even further if I can't get the appointment on the nearest one.

Anyway what happened is that though in the crate some bottles broke. The sometimes clumsy Man upstairs let things that had to come down 'fall' on it instead of carefully lowering the rope. Well, the automated deposit machine won't accept an incomplete crate. So being irritated about it all I just left everything where it was undecided what to do. Then years later, the paper with barcode had been eaten of the remaining bottles too. I know for plastic bottles and cans those codes are imperative for product recognition and getting the money. Somehow the system for glass bottles turned out to be different. Finally, last summer when I tried it out the machine acceppted the remaining 18 or so bottles. Apparently the scanner can 'read' the size and shape without the barcode. So I still got some money after all.

Then what do do with the empty crate. The thing is this particular brand uses a bottle that is different from the regular shape that nine out of ten brands have. It has a longer neck and more rounded shoulders. And what we drink is the regular. So I filled up the crate with those... and finally kicked myself to bring it, to get what I feared: not accepted. The automat is even clever enough to see that this particular crate wants different bottles. So I cashed in the bottles and left the crate. I lost € 1,50. Later on I thought I could have been daft or sly, and take a regular crate from the shop floor exchanging it all...

Long story short I made it up somehow. A few days ago there was an empty crate of a brand (not ours) that uses the regular size bottles in front of the door. With our bottles from last weekend and the the one before I had enough to fill it up today. I didn't wait this time and with a bit of careful biking I cashed in my € 1,50 for the crate. Bottles give and take of course.

Interesting though my voucher/receipt named the brand of the crate. On bottles it just says 'beer bottle'.