Letting it Go

I mentioned a post or two back that I'm doing spring cleaning a bit late. I figure I'm doing last year's, make that the spring of 2008's spring cleaning, oh who am I kidding? I've had junk that seemed valuable that I've been holding onto for years so it actually is not surprising that I have mixed feelings about seeing some of that stuff go.

Here's how I like it to happen. I like to identify the things I'm ready to have removed and have a good friend take them away, preferably in their own car to a place I don't know about where I'm not going to see the stuff again. I imagine the objects that I stored in their pristine condition will go to new homes like cats that are delivered to an animal shelter. I mean, they all get adopted, right?

What I don't like to happen is for me to have to put the stuff in my car and drop it off somewhere. That's not my preference. I'll do it, have done it, will do it again, but it's not the best. I'm not sure what I don't like about it but I know it makes me a bit squeamish.

Sometimes in the past, I've had friends put bigger things out on the curb and even though it's not garbage day, due the neighbourhood I'm in, those things invariably get snatched up within an hour or two. I'm always thinking, what if it rains? Then that "thing" I've saved will be ruined. C'mon, could we get over it already?

My friend, who's been helping me with this round of clearing stuff out, has not gone so far as to drive my stuff away, but he has helped me load my car and has put things out on garbage day. And guys, I don't have a big place, it's not like this is tons of stuff, but it's a lot of stuff. He says I should follow the process, be responsible and aware the whole way along, blah blah blah. And I'm like, "couldn't you just take it to that magic place where formerly-important things go?"

So the other day after garbage day when I saw a guy on a bike wrestling with my old ghetto blaster, I just about lost it. First of all, I thought we were taking electronics to the recycling place, which we had done last week already. Then I wondered where that had been stored and if the guy had come to my back porch and taken it before I was ready to give it away. Or did it go on the curb on Tuesday night and he was just getting his hands on it now? "Luc!" I later queried, "where'd you put that ghetto blaster? How come some guy on a bike has it?"

It didn't matter. By that point I was laughing my head off. If I wanted to make sure it went to a good home, I had proof. It was not a pocket-sized unit. He was a small man on a small bike riding past the homeless shelter. He was super-motivated to take that thing away and as I walked past him struggling to balance with it on his bike I knew he couldn't know that we were performing an invisible transaction.

(He's got a red backpack on and the tape player - double deck! - is in his left hand. The top picture I pulled from the internet as I did not take pictures of the unit before it left.)