ME!
Guess what I picked up along the side of the road!
It’s a Little Tykes Turtle Sand Box / Sandpit! (retail price $39.95 + $25.00 shipping from the Tikes web site! Sand and children not included.) I saw it on a trash pile when I was driving to the hardware store, and I said to myself, if it’s still there on the way back, I will take a look at it. And it was, so I did. Other than the fact that it was FILTHY, there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Who HOO! Free sand box. It’s ironic, however, as my father and I, just this morning, were just emailing each other with plans for building a sandbox on the new property*. I can confidently say that building a custom box is still the plan, but I took the wee turtle home with me anyway. Eleanor kept picking at the dirt so I decided to wash it. I’m pleased with how relatively clean it came. Eleanor at this very moment is outside playing in the water left in the turtle. That gal sure can get dirty. I would be freezing my shell off, but Eleanor has never found a puddle she didn’t like, even frozen ones.
So, do you fine me crude to gather toys from the junk heap? I suppose you’ve never turned some other man’s trash into your own personal treasure? I guess you could say I am a Junkman’s Daughter, as my father often brought home shoe boxes filled with crayons, pencils and other things that were left in lockers at the end of the school year, and the odd piece of furniture, electronics and plants left behind in some of his rentals. I’m pretty frugal, and the price on this toy certainly was right.
Well, I can see from the window that my girl’s jeans are wet up to her knees now… Opp! She just put her hair in the water. Gotta go… Unless you got something in your trash can better than a grumpy muppet?
(LOL – now she is just pouring the water into her belly button!)
*Property not yet aquired.
I think that the turtle is a delightful find.
Being on a university campus where most of the kids are from wealthy families, we get a LOT of stuff left when the kids leave their dorm rooms each year. Sofas, TV and stereo sets. computers. Beds. Dressers. It is ASTOUNDING what these kids will throw away rather than take home. We live in a world where everything is disposable.
I am actually hopeful that one of the results of the financial downturn will be that people will start valuing what they have. Who knows, a real appreciation of craftsmanship might make a comeback.
That would be really nice to have quality be the priority again. Alas, too many people love their cheap Chinese-made products available in unlimited quantity from Walmart. I’m thinking about decorating at my next house in the Arts and Crafts style. Quality stuff that.
Guest reply from the husband:
The most telling thing about Tom Hanks I ever read was the peripatetic childhood he had with his Dad. In an interview he said, “sometimes you just leave the appliances there.” I’ve shlepped baseball cards and concert t-shirts from house to house in Ohio and Georgia but rarely “unpack” them for enjoyment. “The only baggage you can take is all that you can’t leave behind.”
I once had an uncle who was an expert dumpster diver. I remember being stunned by all the treasures he would turn up… until the day he told me about the (only partly edible) bag of apples he had saved.
At that point I lost interest.
I know there are treasures to be had, I just can’t make myself go.
Good score with the turtle though!