The Ballad Of The 10-Cent Man
[Romer, speaking]
All right, well, I'm going to start by telling you one story

[Fountain, speaking]
Go for it

[Romer, speaking]
And then I'm going to sing you a different story. The first story, the one I'm just going to tell you, starts back in 1976. Back then, folks in Michigan had themselves a problem, and the problem was this. On the sides of the roads and on the shores of Lake Michigan and, well, just everywhere, empty bottles, empty cans. And the people rose up, and they passed a law that said, from now on, there's going to be a 10-cent deposit on every bottle and every can. That's a true story, and so is this song

[Romer, speaking]
It's called "The Ballad Of The 10-Cent Man." It's about a man in 2016 who decided, heck, I know about some cans down in Kentucky where there ain't no 10-cent deposit. I'm going to get them. I'm going to drive them back to Michigan. And, well, he figured that was a pretty good idea

[Romer, singing]
Michigan man had a crazy dream
Aluminum cans got a silver gleam
A dime apiece - well, he'd get rich
Perfect plan didn't have a hitch
You see a cop, get out of Dodge
It's time for Coke can arbitrage

[Chorus (Romer & Pinamonti)]
For a thousand bucks, he drove from Kentucky
With 10,000 cans, he might get lucky
It's better than a nickel. There's always a dime
All it's going to cost him is the gas and the time
[Romer, speaking]
Now, if you're wondering if Michigan paying 10 cents a can instead of 5 cents a can made a difference...

[Pinamonti, speaking]
Well, I was

[Romer, speaking]
Well, John, I can tell you that it did. Last year, just under 90% of cans in Michigan got returned. That's 10%, 20%, 30% higher than in nickel-a-can states. Why, in 1992 in Michigan, 100.4% of cans got returned

[Pinamonti, speaking]
What?

[Romer, speaking]
And that's hard to do

[Pinamonti, speaking]
Yes, it is

[Romer, speaking]
OK, let's get back to the song about our arbitrager. That's a real word, by the way

[Pinamonti, speaking]
Yeah, I'll add it to my vocabulary

[Romer, singing]
By the time he got back, it was late
Cop by the road - call it fate
Pulled him over, said, why so fast?
Man's dream of cans - not made to last
This perfect plan had just one flaw
Out-of-state cans were against the law
[Chorus (Romer & Pinamonti)]
For a thousand bucks, he drove from Kentucky
With 10,000 cans, he might get lucky
It's better than a nickel. There's always a dime
But now he was facing prison time

[Pinamonti, speaking]
Uh-oh

[Romer, singing]
The cop at the trial said the truck was packed
With 10,000 cans, to be exact
The judge said, you don't have to go to jail
Just put 1200 bucks in the mail
The judge asked the man what he had to say
I made a huge mistake, Your Honor. I regret it every day

[Romer, speaking]
That's a real quote

[Chorus (Romer & Pinamonti)]
For a thousand bucks, he drove from Kentucky
With 10,000 cans, he might get lucky
It's better than a nickel. There's always a dime
What's worse is a $1200 fine
It cost a lot more than the gas and the time
[Romer, speaking]
This really happened. You can Google it