It’s not that the stuff is all garbage. Kate and I found a kind of abstract art print in decent condition a year or so ago and brought it home and hung it up. Maybe that’s more of a statement about relaxed taste than artistic merit, but we felt it was worth the effort to pick up and carry home and didn’t change our minds when we took a second look at the thing.
For the most part, though, what you see out on the curbs and at the end of driveways is crap of dubious utility. It’s stuff put out on the street with the hopeful delusion that even though your dog finds the old couch repulsive, someone out there would be happy to have it. They would welcome the chance to fumigate and reupholster it. After all, it’s free.
Every once in a while, though, someone dumps their castoff item in the public right-of-way with a note that seems to say, “Who are we kidding? This is junk, but we’re leaving it out here for the amusement of you, the passer-by. Maybe you’ll even take it away.”
Witness the item above (and attached message, below), a dated piece of office equipment with a topical note appealing to those who wish for the days before everything we do could be captured on a server somewhere and preserved forever.
