mysterious items

[asakiyume]

While cleaning out the shed this past weekend, I found a number of things that are no longer useful to our household. A lawn spreader, for instance. I used it once, to spread lime. Then I decided to leave the lawn to its own devices, and now I have thyme and clover and hawkweed and dandelion and plantain growing--along with various sorts of grasses--and contentedly watch the bees and butterflies all summer long.

Also two skateboards, a snowboard, a soccer ball, and a street hockey stick and puck. "We never used it for street hockey," the ninja girl reminisced, later. "It was always a weapon or a staff or something like that in the games we played."

I put these out on my front lawn with a sign saying "Mysterious items found in shed; help yourself" and went into the house to post them in the neighborhood facebook group. By the time I had done that and come back outside, the lawn spreader was already gone. Brilliant!

Some time later, in the evening, I came onto my porch to shuck some corn, heard voices out front, and lo and behold, there were four children out front, three girls--sisters--and a boy. The older two girls, maybe 11 and 9 years old, were each cradling a skateboard. The boy had the street hockey stick and puck. The youngest girl, maybe 6 or 7, was standing dejectedly in front of the snowboard and soccer ball.

"Oh hi!" said the oldest sister, when she saw me. "We can really take this stuff?"

"Yes, definitely," I said. "I appreciate it!"

"She's unhappy," said the middle sister, indicating the youngest one. "Because she wanted the street hockey stick, but Noah took it."

"I love street hockey!" said Noah fervently.

"Do you have another one in your shed?" asked the middle sister.

"I'm afraid not--that's all the stuff I have," I said. "I don't suppose she'd like a soccer ball? I guess probably everyone has a soccer ball, huh."

"Well. Not everyone," said the oldest sister.

"What if you share it?" said Middle to Youngest. And then, to Noah, "Next time you come, you could trade off with her." From which I gleaned that Noah is visiting.

Somehow they sorted things out to Noah and Youngest's satisfaction.

"Please take the soccer ball too!" I begged. "All this stuff was my kids'.** I'm not going to be playing soccer."

"What grade are your kids in?" asked Middle.

"Oh, they're all grown up." I said. Oldest and Middle nodded. Of course, of course. That explained everything!

Youngest generously deigned to take the soccer ball, which left only the snowboard. You can't really expect to move a snowboard in August! Today I took it to the take-and-leave hut at the town transfer station.


**Actually, one of the skateboards was mine, but I don't plan on skateboarding in the future.

Comments

[raven]

We do that in our neighbourhood too - mostly things on the garden wall with sign that says "please take", or things left on a neighbour's garden wall if you don't have a garden - and I really like it. Although there is a legendary story about someone in Camden who put a whole bunch of pristine Playstation games plus the console on the garden wall with a sign that said "HE WAS FUCKING HER IN OUR BED PLEASE TAKE".

[asakiyume]

Ahahahaha, the revenge, I hope it was sweet.

[sartorias]

Huzzah!

[asakiyume]

^_^

[threemeninaboat]

Yeahhh... I want a OneWheel and that would kill me.

[asakiyume]

You mean it would kill you if there was one on offer and then a friend grabbed it first? Or just that it would kill you if there was stuff available, but not a OneWheel?

[threemeninaboat]

I'd just fall off and die like a skateboard!

[asakiyume]

Ohh!! You could take it very easy, like I used to do. The most mild of inclines only ;-)

[amaebi]

I am remembering your skateboarding story and wondering about this coda.

[asakiyume]

There's nothing much to it: I enjoyed the skateboarding but then just drifted away from doing it. Part of it was that I became more worried about falling and hurting myself--I'd never fallen, but I'd also never gotten so that I was actually balancing on it for all that long, and was thinking that being afraid of falling was going to keep me from really embracing the activity wholeheartedly. What's funny is that I've tripped and fallen now and again while running, but it doesn't put me off running. So I don't know why the idea of falling off the skateboard was such a big deal--but somehow it was. And I just started doing other things (like running) more, and I didn't really miss or mourn the skateboarding. I liked it a whole lot when I did it! It was fun, while I was doing it. But now I'm quite contented to think of the skateboards in other hands.

[amaebi]

Thank you for your great kindness in satisfying my curiosity. That progression seems very natural to me— falling down and getting up again were among my few talents. With my arthritic knees, getting up again is now a deficit, not a talent, and I have doubts about the falling down well part, too.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, things change with time!

[minoanmiss]

reads happily

[asakiyume]

*appreciates happily*

[heleninwales]

I remember your adventures with skateboarding. I'm glad the items have found new appreciative owners.

[asakiyume]

I'm so gratified that you and others (well, amaebi, at any rate!) remember them! Skateboarding was fun, while I was into it. I still like watching other people do it, but **I** just don't feel like doing it anymore.

[osprey_archer]

I remember your adventures in skateboarding! I'm glad you've found new homes for most of the items.

[asakiyume]

Yes! May those girls have great fun, as I did!

I feel like most of the time, if you're lucky enough to have takers for your items, you never see the person (like with the spreader--it was there and then gone). It was fun to get to see the kids who had claimed the stuff.

[light_of_summer]

Yay for old belongings being happily passed along!

The last time I moved, I put a lot stuff out front for people to take (including some 'gifts' long ago wished on me by since-departed relatives), and I think significant parts of the haul ended up with the young girls next door. (Yay! \🙂/ )

Linguistic/local custom trivium: around here, the usual way is to put small items in a cardboard box with the large word FREE written on it in marker. This is logically called a Free Box.

For larger items, a piece of paper with FREE written on it is generally taped to the item, but the word is also sometimes chalked directly onto the item.

I now live in a condo development, instead of a regular neighborhood, and there are owners association rules that I think forbid the practice here on site (sigh). But the general area is blessed with good options for keeping usable stuff out of the landfill, so I can't complain too much. It just isn't as convenient as being able to pop out the door with a box and place it near the curb.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[asakiyume]

That's wonderful about the girls next door ^_^
And that's annoying about the homeowners association--funny the things people are opposed to!--but excellent about reuse opportunities in your area generally.

They do use "free" on signs here too! There's one that frequently doesn't have anything being offered (or maybe whatever things they put out just get taken right away), and so it seems to be making a kind of profound existential statement:

[light_of_summer]

If someone is going to put an existential statement on their lawn, that's an intriguing one to pick! 😏

I have seen free boxes and surrounding areas that look really abandoned and neglected and junky to me. From some of the other rules where I live, I suspect that the local condo owner's association is really invested in having this whole development look well kept up and respectable.

I can see a certain amount of that as courtesy to one's neighbors—not putting junk in their view or potentially bringing down their property values by association. I imagine that deciding where to draw the lines might be challenging ...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[asakiyume]

If you're happy, overall, with the association and the rules, then all's well.

[wayfaringwordhack]

Ah the pleasure of passing along things to delight others. I liked reading about your skateboard adventures, but I understand if you have no more plans in that direction. It is good to know others will get use out of the board🥰

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I did it for a while but now it's nice to think of those girls experimenting with them.

[cafenowhere]

It's so satisfying when the freebies are snatched up. Like you, I usually don't see the new owner take the item, so it feels a little magical, too.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, when the spreader just ... disappeared, it was hard to believe it had actually even been on the lawn. It was so gone! Was there ever really a spreader?

(I say in my standard writer bio that I have problems with object permanence, and I wrote it as kind of a joke but maybe it's actually true?)