Someone out there has a new fish smoker. Make that: Someone out there has a new fish smoker that’s not new at all.
It’s rusted. It’s cracked. The rack is kinda broken.
A few days ago, it was living on the curb, waiting for the magic of Spring Clean-Up to make it disappear.
Didn’t happen. Someone — and I have no idea who this might be, given that there have been hundreds of people trolling the street — came upon it and whisked it away.
I hope they enjoy it.
Hope someone else is enjoying his or her new printer — again, not new at all. This individual took a pass on the paper towel dispenser and the frying pan — I get that — but went for the printer. Oh dear. It’s been printing in streaks for months on end and will be of absolutely no use to its new owner. Unless, of course, the new owner plans to have it redesigned and reinvented, oh, as a hangout for a hamster.
The fishing pole went, the umbrella stayed. The picture frames vanished, the luggage remained. Awaiting the Spring Clean-Up magic.
In the more than two decades we've lived with this curious curbside tradition, we've continued to be baffled by what people want, and what people don't.
The kid's bike that was missing a wheel and the seat? A treasure for some troller, who had no doubt picked up a wheel and a seat at Spring Clean-Up the previous year.
No idea why anyone wanted the breadmaker. Never mind that it didn't work and had been taking up precious real estate in the pantry. Who uses breadmakers anymore? Perhaps someone was assembling items for a museum of out-of-fashion kitchen appliances? It would have made a perfect fit.
"Can't believe it," the husband said one year. "Someone took our bookshelves." "Weird," I said. "The shelves were missing."
Then I thought about it.
"I suppose," I said, "that you could lie it down and turn it into a sandbox."
The husband nodded.
"Wow," he said. "Maybe we shouldn't have let it go."
Not so much the ceramic flowerpots that had been broken into pieces. We happily let them go. Ditto the splintered plastic Adirondack chairs and the desk that was missing a drawer.
Still, someone took them all.
It's odd. I have always been an enthusiastic Spring Clean-Up participant, but always as a tosser and never as a troll. I really don't know why they want my junk. But I can't complain that they do.
