America's Bounty

Everything is free in this country. If you want something and you don't care when you get it or what it looks like, odds are you can get it without paying. Everyone just has so much stuff they don't know what to do with it. Over the last week, Sarah and I have scavenged the following from next to dumpsters, the side of the curb, and people's lawns:

A wooden table and four matching chairs
An electric mixer and two metal beaters (separate places)
A mostly working bike (only one flat tire!)
A mostly non-working bike and a wheel that almost fits it (separate places)
A sauce pan
A lid for another pan
A five speaker stereo system, a sub-woofer, and a stereo receiver (separate places... but then they all went to the side of my curb when I couldn't figure out how to connect them.)
A double papasan chair... I didn't actually know they made those, let alone gave them away to grad students.
A desk (Sarah's- heavy, wooden, not that much fun to move)
Another desk (mine- rickety, fake wood and metal, kinda fun to move)
A chair with wheels (70s chic with not that many cobwebs... anymore)
A wooden knife holder which almost fits the knives I precariously jammed into it
Something that probably wasn't meant to be a shoe rack but that we're using as one.
A UC Santa Cruz class of 2002 mug (way easier to get than my Whitman College class of 2007 mug)
A well-framed but otherwise unremarkable acryllic painting of a an old Spanish mission. As soon as I find some paint and paint brushes on someone's curb I'm going to add something to the blank spot in the upper-lefthand corner. Ideas? I was thinking a spaceship attacking the mission piloted by Jesus, but I'm open to suggestions.

Things I almost got but had to pass on:
A snowboard (I'm a pretty terrible snowboarder)
Several pairs of skis (I'm an even worse skier)
A trench coat (tempting, but it's still 90 degrees here, and if I ever let my beard get too long and wore it I'd look homeless.)
How to be a Pole Dancer DVD: Vol. 1, Beginner to Intermediate (This one was pretty hard to say no to, until I realized that I'm clearly an advanced pole dancer, and everything in the DVD would just be "kid's stuff.")
Hook, VHS (The video tape won't fit into the DVD player and I can't, for the life of me, imagine what kind of machine could possibly play it. Also, I didn't like Hook.)

Things I'm still waiting to find:
A Harvard class of 2002 mug
A couch which has never had any bodily fluids on it.
How to be a Pole Dancer DVD: Vol. 2, Advanced to Super Advanced. (I actually starred in that video, so I don't need to learn from it, but I figured I could sign the cover and it would make a nice gift.)

Comments

Andrea B. (Red Loper) said…
Kevin's RA sophomore year had a double papasan. I have a picture of him in it covered with a blanket. We called it the Kevin Nest. Oh the days before digital cameras.

Kevin and I used to dumpster/curb after graduation b/c we'd be there in the summer. I'd get books and sell them on half.com. Oh the money I made.

I so could have used pole dancer dvd! I would have traded you brushes and a tube of paint (or various plastic bags with a few blobs of paint for the martian scene). My cat is trying to learn. (it's not for me)

Kevin used to find ten bajillion mini fridges before a campus fridge rental business came to be. I have Reynolds Wrappers, precut pop up foil sheets from that time still. Oh the joy.. He'd bring the truck.. oh the truck.. the couches.. the memories.. the sweet memories..

Before the crackdown where they made the trash pickup people come more often (not Kevin in pic):

http://www.geocities.com/jiggilypuffs/trashpile.JPG
1:57 AM
Crankster said…
So this is what bounty hunters in America do - dive into dumpsters. :)

You starred in the video huh? Were you the dancer or the pole?
11:49 PM
Anonymous said…
Hey Ez,

What fun! I remember that about America, getting all sorts of great stuff for free. Sadly this great tradition hasn't really made it to the UK. I wish it would. It's the best. I love the feeling of walking around and discovering some abandoned treasure which would be perfect next to the painting of the mission (or whatever). I had the best armchair in the world in Northampton. It was covered in hideous orange and brown plaid but you could just sink right into it. Pure bliss. I picked it up for free from a couple of lesbians at the end of their yard sale. Remarkably, no one else had wanted it. I wasn't sure how to get it home so one of them even offered to drive it around in the back of her pick up truck. It doesn't get much better than that.

Love
Fay
4:24 AM
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