Does anybody need a futon?

You know what is a LOUSY start to a holiday weekend? Renting a truck. Nothing good ever follows a truck rental. What is it about a day off work that makes people decide to work!?!?! The earlier basement cleaning turned out to be just a light dusting…this past weekend it was time for the heavy lifting…that’s right….Goodwill.

And let me just tell you…giving your stuff away at a metro Goodwill is like a sociology project. You know all those recovering addicts that Goodwill helps? Well, I think a few of them decided to cut out the middleman (Goodwill) and go straight to the source (me) because they were ALL there at the Goodwill on Saturday. (However, I am not so sure about the “recovering” part of this particular assemblage.)

Seriously, this cross-section of humanity included a blue-shirted Goodwill worker who knows that a holiday weekend coincides with unloading 800 truckfuls of other people’s garbage, another guy who was suffering from a deficiency of fingers AND teeth (someone REALLY lost a bar fight), a guy who looked remarkably like the tattoo “artist” who removed my belly ring and a baseball-cap-wearin’, beer-stinkin’ wretch who hadn’t showered in days [oh wait...that was me!]. It was a veritable beehive of dereliction right there in front of the Goodwill.

And then I had to negotiate for them to take half the stuff! Seriously…how bad does your junk have to be for the Goodwill to reject it!?!?! “But it’s an ANTIQUE Wilco radio – it’s not SUPPOSED to work.” “What.do.you.mean you won’t take the futon?!?! Look my friend, I am here for two reasons…a tax deduction and to ditch this futon. [and oh yeah…to donate to a worthy cause, blah, blah, blah] “I mean…the REST of this crap I can dump illegally – but I need YOU to take the futon.” At which point…it's sad to say…I tried to bribe the Goodwill guy to take the futon. How.low.can.you.go when you try to bribe the Goodwill guy??? And get this…he declines. And not just declines, but declines righteously, with a tone of well-earned superiority. Excellent…this basement-cleaning has ruined my Saturday AND my integrity.

The guy must have ultimately felt sorry for me (which is pretty rich in irony given the company we were keeping at that moment) because he finally did agree to take the stinkin’ thing – “but no receipt for it” [he knows how to hit me where it hurts]. But it was good timing, because I was just about to offer Mr. One-Tooth sixty bucks to take it. I guess he’ll just have to settle for a Wilco radio.