Shopping the Roadside

One of the things I enjoy about the south is the way that Southerners dispose of unwanted but usable items. (Though I'm not entirely sure that this is a Southern thing; but let's get past that and enjoy my amazing writing skills, shall we?)

Every so often I'll be driving down the street and see things sitting by the roadside.  TVs, shelves, even exercise equipment just sitting there.  Sometimes they will have a hand written sign saying "FREE" or "TAKE ME" and always I slow down to see what it might be. The objects in the picture above turned out to be a bin of silk flowers.  I'd like to have kept the bin, but didn't want the flowers.  I'll pass.

A couple of days later, on the same road, here's a line up of three TVs and a couple of mattresses. I can tell by the design that these are older style 'non-digital' TVs and as I don't really need any more TVs; again - I'll pass.  

In all this passing up of roadside shopping, the thing to note is that these things DO disappear. People pick them up, take them home and fix them, clean them and end up with some usable item for their home.  

In fact, I've done it myself!  In my work area right now are two chairs we 'rescued' from the side of the road, which my wife and I will refinish when the living room is done.  (Oh there I go again, mentioning that dang living room project and I said I wasn't going to go there.  But at least I'm digressing again which is always a good sign.)  

I also once picked up a nice Gun Cabinet. (Yes, Bubba, capitalized.) Now, every southerner with a gun has a special place to put them and a gun cabinet seemed the ideal solution to my storage needs.  Load it up and take it home!  The front glass door was cracked but I planned on covering that for more security.  To make a long story short, my projects (read: living room) never included the cabinet, and it ended up by the side of the road in front of my house along with an old mirror, an old vacuum cleaner and a TV (I guess there must always be a TV).  They were gone in no time.  

When I'm considering getting rid of things I no longer want or need, it's amazing to me that there is someone else that would overlook the mouse droppings in the bottom or the spider webs on the back and (hopefully) get some use out of it.  If not, they are probably like me, and will place it back on the side of the road.  

Now I'm wondering how many times that gun cabinet has been passed along by the road side.  Life here in the south sure can be thought provoking.