If It's Free, It's For Me

It’s a familiar groan now. It begins when the first family member in the car with me feels us start to slow unexpectedly going past a pile of junk and realizes what’s happening, and then it quickly spreads the rest of my passengers like a virus.

“DAD. LEAVE IT.”

My sister-in-law got me a t-shirt:

              ._      _.                   
             /  `""""`  \                  
        .-""`'-..____..-'`""-.             
      /`\                    /`\           
    /`   |                  |   `\         
   /`    |    I stop for    |    `\        
  /      |    yard sales    |      \       
 /       /   thrift stores  \       \      
/        | and weird stuff  |        \     
'-._____.|    by the side   |._____.-'     
         |    of the road   |              
         |                  |              
         |                  |              
         \                  |              
         /                  |              
         |                  \              
         |                  |              
     jgs '._              _.'              
            `""--------""`                 

She thinks it hilarious, but her sister does not. After 20 years of hauling things home, my wife finally put her foot down and said if it doesn’t have a place, it stays by the side of the road.

She does not count the driveway as a valid “place”. Fair.

She wasn’t always this way. When we were dating, trash-picking was fun and quirky. Hell, she helped me carry home an ornate (and heavy) wrought iron ottoman someone put out on trash night to the cozy one bedroom in Queen Village we were sharing. She gladly went on dates funded by things I had flipped on ebay or craigslist.

But then we moved to a real house in the burbs, and I pushed the clutter too far. She says I have too much stuff. I push back: we just don’t have enough shelves.

I come by it honestly. I had a Ford Aerostar in high school. It was my parents, but once I could drive and taxi my younger siblings around, it was practically mine. I loved it. Both rows of seats could come out, and its boxy shape meant getting to use all of the floor space unlike today’s smooth and elegant wastes-of-space. I accidentally drove it the length of Forbidden Drive one night trying to find Devil’s Gorge—true story—but alas, no roadside treasures to report.

I hauled home a full-size jukebox I found. I hauled home scrap wood for projects. I hauled home things from the thrift store. My dad never gave me grief about where the things would go, even the jukebox. It sat in the garage until it had soaked up enough moisture from the air for the particleboard to come apart. It got thrown away.

I feel a dread at the thought of throwing away things that still have use. I missed the Great Depression the same way I missed the Great War. And just as we no longer know World War I by that name, I fear in the coming years, we will also need to add a numbering scheme to our depressions, great and small.

And when that time comes, I’ll be ready. I’ve got my extensive cache of found treasure, and I’ve been honing my diving skills, biding my time, enduring the groans. I will emerge from my badgered chrysalis ready to forage and live off the fat of the land.

Because, you know, if it’s free, it’s for me.