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Dear Board : A thread for small things not worthy of a thread of their own.


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Mr Lobster, you should consider the possibility that the thief was someone known to you who didn't want to totally wreck your world but wanted to get what they could.  Once I was thieved by someone who stole my coat but didn't steal the spare car key in the coat.  He took the generic goods in the trunk but left the 122pc Craftsman tool set. 

Eco-Guilt.  How many things do I keep hanging around, taking up space because I feel guilty about getting rid of them? 

I have this fan.  I broke the stand but the fan still works so if you hang it from a vertical pole just so...

I have this old mattress pad. It's not stained, just old.  The quilted fabric could be useful in a number of ways but I just don't need it. 

This is not about these specific problems, it is about the general concept:  I have something which is marred, which I don't need.  Someone else might love to have it but it is a major PITA to find that person.  I'm pretty sure that even Goodwill doesn't take stuff that is broken.

So how do you draw the line?  When do you send it to the landfill even though it could be useful?

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Craigslist freebies section. (Or equivalent local alternative.) Or, depending on percipitation, just put out on curb or nearby bench or something. I've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff that way - it's a few minutes to get photographed and put up, and then its a few phone calls and people basically magically show up and just...take it away. Mutual joyousness. Woosh.

I recall we had a discussion about this kind of thing before, and came away knowing that America is a scary place and there it has to be like abandoned Walmart parking lots at high noon and no names exchanged to hand over that set of mismatched coffee mugs, but I just give people my address.

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Indeed, I used to have such a sweet set-up in that regard.  First floor near the mailboxes, I could put anything out at any time and it would be gone in minutes.  Now my apartment building is rife with theoretical reduce/reuse/recyclers who don't want each other's crap.  We tried to have a 'free pile' in the basement but people only ever added (broke, dirty, disorganized) never subtracted.  So the building management finally squashed that.

I want to set up a 'free pile' outside my door with the idea that anything not harvested within 3 days will be distributed to charity or landfill but I am afraid that people will either add their shit to my pile or take the table the stuff is laid on.

That has been a craigslist problem:  once you advertise that something is free, people will come to your house and take anything that's not nailed down.

On the flip side of the coin is the borderline hoarder.  He will take anything but he can't store it and he won't refurbish it in any kind of timely fashion so I would be enabling his behavior to give my crap to him.

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I just realised I went to work in non-matching shoes. They are the same colour... and that's it. I was wondering why I was walking in a funny way; they're flats but the heels are still not quite the same size.

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Litechick - is actually placing stuff outside the building off-limits? I wouldn't leave stuff inside, because no one would ever touch it, for years. (My parents moved a packed bookshelf out into the hall years ago...not only has no one ever taken anything, ocassionally new books turn up on it,) but that's what The Bench Next To The Garbage Bin is for. 

People getting rid of random, damaged, useless crap by stashing it in some communal pile and so salving their conscience has to go die though, I hear you on that. If it needs to be thrown out, and really is practically unfixable, throw it out, recycling as much as you can - and maybe think twice before you buy your next disposable, breakable, piece of consumer trash. 

Though who knows...maybe we can wait it out. A few decades down the line, hoarder clutter might be all the decorating rage (very early 2010s, you know?) and then your footless fan and my dad's collection of Soviet electric cables will be priceless vintage pieces?

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I was in a meeting this morning and the head of my department farted. I was trying really hard not to notice but it wafted over to me. I don't know the protocol. If it was one of my friends, obviously I'd have pointed it out, teased them, told them they stink and laughed at them.

Somehow I don't think you can do this in the workplace.

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Datepalm, bless you for trying.

Quote

think twice before you buy your next disposable, breakable, piece of consumer trash. 

This is why I don't own a foot massage/spa.  As much as it seems like a totally awesome thing to end the day with a bubbly massage, I know that I would use it 3 times and then ignore it until it became another piece of eco-guilt.  My actual expression for that is 'future trash' and I try to avoid it as much as I can see it coming.

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I woke up feeling like I had gargled with razor blades two days ago.  I am going to assume this is the result of eating a french fry po-boy on the sofa while lying down and then falling asleep in said prone position.

IT HURTS!    Took my acid reflux pill  and 800 mg of ibuprofen and swore to eat at the table like a human for at least the next week.

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Can a woman be a drag queen? 

I am fairly ignorant about the logistics and definitions but I do enjoy gold lame more than I probably should.  I love sparkly things in general but I feel that I know where to draw the line.  Maybe I don't.

It's a question of taste and When Harry Met Sally taught us that everyone thinks they have good taste and a sense of humor but not everyone does.  So how do you know if you don't have good taste and a sense of humor?  The only evidence is in how the people around us respond to us but then you get mired in societal norms and group think so that's not any help.  Homer Simpson says, "let your freak flag fly!" and that is a comfort.

But still, is 'drag queen' more an aesthetic than a definition or not?  Does biological gender matter in that context?

 

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