To the alley and beyond!

When we first moved in, our landlady told us that if we had stuff we wanted to get rid of, we should put it out in the alley on the weekends before the trash comes on Mondays. People, she said, drive through the alleys and take stuff. It’s a very convenient way to get rid of things you don’t want. Really? I thought. I mean, I was slightly disturbed that sketchy people basically drive through our pseudo-backyards and take stuff. And I also didn’t really believe her. You should see some of the stuff we have and want to get rid of, I thought. I highly doubt throwing it in the alley will make it disappear!

Well, as we continued unpacking, B and I tested the process. We threw our “trash” into the alley. Like these ridiculously huge size 14 traditional wooden clogs B picked up on one of his Europe trips. I swear, I probably could have crawled into one of those things and used it as a kayak. Like a straw Chinese rice hat (no comment). Like a huge dirty rug we had in our garage. Like a bug zapper. The list is endless. Guess what? It was all gone within minutes, or hours, in some cases. But gone nonetheless! Genius! This is a brilliant little thing they got going on here, we thought.

Still, I was just a little alarmed thinking of strangers driving through our neighborhood for stuff. What's to stop them from seeing what we have behind our alley gate? My fears have since subsided though. During one of his visits, our next door neighbor, the one with the airhorn, told us that he actually took our bug zapper and a few other things we had sitting out…he hoped we didn’t mind. I guess he’s a dancer, so I wondered if he also took the clogs?

Then, a week later, B and I were returning from a run, walking through the alley, and we saw these really cool, old, white wood-framed windows that someone was throwing away. We thought they’d look great hanging on our fence outside. So we snagged them. And as we carried them home, it dawned on me…our neighborhood…really, we’re all just trading trash. WE are the sketchy ones, just taking each other’s stuff!

And I took it to another level the other day. Once again, we were on our way home from a run and we passed the garage of the KISS neighbors. They had a box of books and magazines that caught my eye. I stopped. B continued a couple steps before stopping and turning to look at me with his eyebrows up. On top was a stack of May 2011 magazines. I proudly and quickly snagged Glamour. "Really," B asked? "Did you really just do that?" I said "Heck yeah, Who needs a subscription to a magazine when you live in our neighborhood?!"