On Man's Treasure

I was once walking along the streets outside my local mall on a hot day when I was approached by a transient:

"Hey, you want some of my soda?  You look hot."

I wasn't sure whether I should be disgusted by the contents of a dirty cup or wonder about the man's sexual orientation.  I may have been confused, but you can't fault the sales pitch and applaud the gentleman for his astute observation on temperature in relation to the human condition.

This all brings me to tonight's topic.  You've doubtlessly heard the phrase, "One man's trash is another man's treasure", but  I would like to add the following:  One man's trash is usually just a few steps from a trip to the dump.  The whole trash becoming treasure is really just marketing.

When I was moving from my house that I lived in during college, my housemates and I had an overload of couches.  The Goodwill was a few miles away, and we could only transport one at a time.  We took the couches outside near the house, put a "FREE" sign on them, and waited.  The couches sat for half a day.

As the resourceful students we were, we moved one couch a good distance from the house, then went into the house so we were out of view.  Soon, a truck raced up, two guys would jump out, and everything disappeared in seconds.  We began moving the rest of the couches one by one further from the house, and were successful in getting rid of a couch missing an arm, an orange loveseat that was missing springs, and another sofa that didn't survive 'the cat incident'.

I grew up watching Tom Peterson on TV, who always said, "Free is a very good price."

Well Tom, people are weird.

Hey look, free wood! Stop the car, we need to prepare for the months ahead!