Hooray for Free Table!

Last year I once mentioned that we have a Free Table in the building.

This bears repeating and praising, again. It's just a table in hallway, in the middle of the school, where people can leave and find stuff. The rules are: Anything you leave is still yours until someone claims it. If no one claims it, it needs to be disposed of another way. (Supposedly this should happen after three days, but some things stay longer, and occasionally someone has mercy and takes the whole unwanted loot to Value Village or Goodwill.)

The Free Table is BRILLIANT! I think every community and apartment building should have one. It's a great way to recycle and save money.

In our 18 months (!) at the school, what have we gotten from the Free Table?

• Furniture: A full-sized ottoman, and a little mushroom-shaped upholstered footstool
• Appliances: A working microwave
• Clothing: Rusty's full-length wool coat in immaculate condition; Dina's velvet dress and a summer jacket
• Jewelry: I'm still ecstatic about the beautiful heart-shaped amber earrings I found last week!
• A bread storage box
• A table lamp
• Candles, candle holders
• Numerous cat toys!
  

But even better than scoring at the Free Table is donating to the Free Table. There's nothing more satisfying than leaving something that then disappears within hours (or minutes). It's also so encouraging to continually sort and purge our belongings: I have much less trouble parting with stuff if I know it will make one of my neighbors happy. Seeing Meg's face light up at the collection of small figurines that I collected for my shadow box when I was little made the parting that much easier! I've left clothes, books, CDs and tapes, and jewelry, as well as things we replaced. When I finally found a butter dish that did not squish the butter like the standard size does (pet peeve, anyone?), the old one was cleaned and went to the Free Table. And was gone within a day.

Yay for recycling and saving money!

And now for the continuing saga of the bald head and its piggy dinner:
Piggy prevailed! The white head now gets to enjoy a brussel sprout instead. With fly topping.

Next up: Froggies and rubber duckies go hot-tubbing...