KAR the Scavenger

A friend dropped by the other day and while we were talking she suddenly said, "Man, you never pay for shit, do you?"

She was referring to my hodgepodge of Free Shit - the television, the couch, the foosball table I'm trying to  freecycle, the snake, the microwave. I officially call myself a Scavenger and I pick things up from an assortment of places.

I have two basic questions before scavenging things:
1. Can I or someone I know use it?
2. Is it so unbearably ugly that I will cry every time I look at it?

(Number two is sometimes thrown out the window when I have to put function over form - such as the case with my fugly fucking couch.)

And in some ways, she's right. I don't pay for a lot of things. My scavenging generally works one of two ways:
1. People may  notice I need something and they have that something taking up needed space in their home or storage.. An example would be my fugly fucking couch. It's a really fugly fucking couch and it's falling apart from where the former owner's dog fucking CHEWED ON IT. Generally, I try to fool myself into thinking it's not so bad by tucking a blanket over the seat, but when two or three different people come by, sit on it then say, "Hey, I have this couch I'm not using anymore, do you want it?" then I'm assuming it's probably just as shitty as I'm really thinking it is. I haven't actually gotten another free couch yet, but I'm assuming someone will call me sooner or later to tell me when I can come get one.

2. The other way I end up scavenging is by helping people. I don't intentionally go helping people to see what kind of Free Shit I can get, but it happens. I'm a very handy person for helping to clean out cluttered areas and for moving.

I've moved a lot of people just because that's how we do it around here. A couple of people bring their trucks and/or minivans over, we load their stuff up on the trucks, throw some rope over it if necessary, and move it to the next place. The person being moved may spring for pizza and drinks if they have the money, but it's just as they won't. Generally speaking, helping someone to move is a favor you're investing in that you may call in to be repaid later. Especially if the person you're moving owns a truck.

Anyway, people who are moving  often take moving as an opportunity to unload some of their Shit and then it becomes my Free Shit.


Martha Stewart would have mini strokes because it probably looks like the Big Lots furniture section threw up in here, but a chick's gotta do what a chick's gotta do and if vaguely ugly or definitely mismatched is what I have to live with to not have to pay for something, then I'm good with that.

So here is a list of all my Free Shit:

1. A 25 inch television given to me ten years ago by a former co-worker. I'd just moved in here and they'd just bought a new television so she gave me their old set. This television is actually about thirty years old and I think it may  be on it's last leg because I can't read subtitles anymore without some considerable eyestrain and I can only control the volume and change the channels with the remote. Half the buttons have fallen off and the ones that do work or just as likely to do absolutely nothing towards what you want it to do. Poking at the channel three button now turns the volume up. People keep coming over, looking at it and saying, "Goddamn! You need a television!" But until recently, no one has offered me a new television so I still have this thing. However, a friend I spend a lot of time helping out has just bought some huge ass fucking thing that has such a crisp picture that I'd be scared to watch porn on it because who wants to see ass zits in high def? I'm getting her five year old television. Technically, this is not free. She offered it to me for free, but the television is still rather new and I'm a little funky about taking something extremely new. 
2. My couch. Ugly. Dog eaten. Functional. Sort of. 
3. The corner television stand. 
4. The microwave. I may replace this soon because it's a little old. 
5. The "modern danish buffet" came from freecycle. 
6. The foosball table. My best friend's mom was ready to have it out of her house so it made the big "Santa" present for 2008. Except now I'm really ready to have it out of my damned house. 
7. Three cheap five-shelf book shelves. 
8. Bunkbeds for the heathen boys. 
9. A captain's bed for Tuba Girl. 
10. Kitchen stools. 
11. Televisions for their bedrooms. (Initially, I was very anti-tv-in-the-bedroom, but have relented over the years because people gave us the damned things and it was a hassle with four people wanting to do different things at different times. I pretty well extended myself to allowing it for gaming, but it is not hooked up to cable or dvd players.)
12. the hamster cage
13. the mother fucking snake - The boys' father ran across some people who no longer wanted their California king snake so we got the snake and the huge aquarium. The snake doesn't do much other than take up space in my house, scare off some visitors, and provide something interesting to watch from time to time. Her previous owners had her some five years and never handled her so she does not like being picked up. If anyone does try to pick her up, she attempts to shit on that person and I just don't care to have stinky snake shit on me. Snake shit really stinks.
    
14. a fifties style dresser
15. an army trunk thingy
16. a fifties style student desk
17. a color printer
18. a resin outdoor furniture set
19. an assortment of smaller Free Shit like baskets, clothes, small storage drawers, car stereo speakers, books, Legos, etc

I have, of course, paid for things over my lifetime, but my general rule is to wait around and see if I can get it for free or for some minor work. In turn, if I no longer need something, I try to pass it on to someone who may need it.

The two questions in the beginning of this post are very important when deciding whether I need or want something being offered. We live in approximately 900 square feet and I am adamant about making sure we have enough space to actually live. Children tend to be very busy people and I don't want my space so extremely cluttered with stuff that they don't have enough space to run a little, pull out board games, wrestle, or have space to create.

Wild Boy is a Major Creator. At any given moment, he's on the floor building something with Lego blocks, K'nex, Lincoln logs, or sometimes just some random sticks. He needs enough space to work and I need enough space to walk around him.

I used to keep a lot of clothes that people gave me boxed up and ready for when the boys grew older. (I used to do the same for Tuba Girl, but people don't give you as many clothes when children start getting older. I'd say her supply began to peter out when she was about 12.) I rarely ever bought clothes for children during their first 8 or 10 years. When people gave me clothes, I'd go through everything and work through it until I had about two weeks worth of each size and the passed the rest on. Deciding on what I kept was based specifically on how much storage I had available in my closets and under the beds. Everything else went to people who needed it. 

However, the elementary schools moved to school uniforms in 2008 and I quickly found out that I basically did not need 85% of the damned clothes I'd saved. I went through all the boxes, saved back enough to hopefully get them through weekends and summers as they grow older then passed the rest off to other people.

I was also pretty pissed because all of the uniforms, so far, have had to be bought new. I shuffled through the two local thrift shops, but local children had previously so rarely needed khakis or polo shirts that if there were any available, they were snatched up before I got there. I still regularly check the shops hoping to catch a couple of things, but haven't been lucky. I'm going to have to buy more uniforms pants soon as little boys are rather rough on clothes.

I know this very long post is titled KAR the Scavenger and I plan to keep it, but the point is not really how I score Free Shit. The real point is relationships. My scavenging is a result of being an active participant in my world. When you reach out to the people around you, those people will reach out and hold your hand.

People in my life have done a lot for me and they don't just do it because I'm poor or deprived or some shit because the majority of the people I know are in the same position I am in. People help me because we are friends, family, community. Because they know they can depend on me to do the same for them.

Yeah. It's some sappy shit, but that's how I score Free Shit.