All that glitters…

Today, someone left a large dresser at the Free Bench.  By “large” I mean as tall as my 11-year-old and five times as wide.  If it had had any drawers, there would have been seven.  But it was completely without drawers.  Not a one.  Just seven drawer-shaped gaps.  It is one toothless dresser.

Whoever left the dresser positioned it such that it faces the Bench and faces away from passers-by.  This is a curious choice.  Did they think that someone driving by who needed a dresser and saw the back of this one would come bounding up to it in delight and, upon only then noticing the significant absence of drawers, decide, well, it was still too fabulous a dresser to pass up, even without something we usually consider an essential aspect of dresser-ness?  This Free Bench Depositor was a pro at the ol’ Bait and Switch.

I have to say, though, truthfully, that sometimes the entire Free Bench feels like a Bait and Switch.  There are times when its promising-looking boxes, looked at more closely, contain the lid and grater attachment to a food processor but no control board or bowl, or disgorge sparkly swathes of material that turn out to be so mangled you’d be lucky to make a halter top for a Barbie doll with what’s still usable.  Of course, the really crazy thing is that, most of the time, even these suspiciously trash-like items do eventually go.

My dad is convinced that this dresser will linger and Garth and I will eventually have to lug it somewhere ourselves (i.e., in the dead of night to the apartment dumpster next door).  I, on the other hand, think the dresser will go.  Time will tell.

All this to say that, as you venture into Blog-land with me, it is my hope that most of the time, when something catches your eye enough for you to take a closer look, you still find it satisfying upon closer examination.  Welcome.