So It’s Come To This . . . Scavenging Through the Neighbor’s Trash

Posted On September 15, 2009

Yeah, this is the type of thing that only happens in my home . . .

Yesterday afternoon I hear Boy #1, who has just arrived fresh from the school bus, yelling, “Mom! Come ‘ere! Come help me!”

So I head to the front door and outside, where I immediately see him struggling up the porch steps with this.

“Help me get this chair in the house!” he says with excitement in his voice.

A bit stunned and confused as to why he’s dragging a faded and worn mauve chair, covered in cat hair I might add, into our house, it takes me a few seconds to sputter, “What? Why?”

“Mom, this was just sitting outside someone’s house, and it said FREE on it! It’s FREE!” he says, still struggling to drag the thing over the threshold of the front door.

“Um . . . okay . . . but why are you bringing it here?” I manage to spit out, my mind still processing what could’ve possessed him to pick up someone’s discarded chair on the short walk from the bus stop to our house and carry it home.

“Duh, because it’s FREE!” he says. “You’re the queen of bargains, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want everyone else’s junk!” I protest, but alas, the chair is already inside.

“What are we going to do with it?” I ask.

“Put it right here, ” he says, setting it down triumphantly in the office. (Of course, it’s the FIRST THING you see when you walk in our front door.)

And there it sits. A mauve chair that doesn’t match anything in my house and has long white cat hairs all over it. (Oh, and Husband is allergic to cats.)

But here’s the thing—I can’t very well put it out on our curb now. What would our neighbors think if they saw their chair on our curb? I’m sure they’d think we’re weirder than they already do . . . But I don’t want to leave it where it is because 1) it’s ugly; 2) it’s covered in cat hair; and 3) I’ll be totally embarrassed if our neighbors stop by and then see their dumpster chair displayed like fine furnishings in our house. I already feel like the honyocks of the neighborhood as it is . . .

So for now it still sits until I decide how to properly (and discreetly) dispose of it.

To conclude, I’d like to borrow one of the formerly favorite phrases of my now-5-year-old: “What the—?!”