Posts Tagged ‘presents’

For months now I’ve been emptying out cabinets, closets, the pantry- anything which has held stuff for the store. And by ‘anything’ I really mean ‘everything.’ Every nook and cranny had, if not actual merchandise, shipping stuff, boxes, peanuts, catalogs- something business related.

I was already over it, really. I’d started out going through things very carefully, but after a while I just started putting piles and piles ‘o crap on the curb- and some of it was actual stuff with worth (slightly damaged merch, many plastic containers etc), and some was literally garbage. The most worthless thing that got put out was actually meant for the trashcan, but I forgot to toss it. It was a package of 4 light bulbs that had gotten squashed- through the clear plastic packaging you could see it was just a bunch of broken glass.

Somebody took it anyway. Somebody took everything. Every. Single. Thing. All in all, I guess there were several hundred items, from 8ft metal shelving units down to teeny tiny pouches of Mardi Gras confetti, but there were a couple of oddball items people got really excited about.

The plastic hand I used to stage some of the product photos? There was a fight over it. Seriously. Yelling, in front of the house about who saw it first until one of them just snatched it and took off.

And as happy as I was that this stuff was going to get some kind of a second chance at life, that maybe it’d be used by someone else (though I’m not sure what sort of edification the crackhead found in “Quickbooks: The Official Guide” ), I started to get aggravated when random strangers began stopping me as I went in the house, wanting to know when I’d be putting more stuff out. Like, specifically- what time? And was there going to be anything “good?”

The chick who lost out on the hand was particularly grating. She seemed to think the hand had a mate somewhere inside I was just holding out on her. She came back for days afterward and kept asking me if I was sure I didn’t have another one.

So just as I got to the point of feeling like no good deed goes unpunished, this appeared on my doorstep:

Okay, it’s filthy – but it’s brand new- the tag’s still on the collar! And, well, it’s a little something, isn’t it? A little Karmic prize in return for my neighborhood donation? Someone came along, found something useful on the curb, and like a little Sarcasm Fairy left this on my stoop before flitting away into the night, taking with him, oh…I don’t know. Maybe the gross of condoms that was out there that night? Or maybe it was the world’s ugliest doll?

Whatever it was, I hope he was happy with the trade. I know I am.