I was driving home from work this morning and passed a charity drop-off box. Someone had left a dining table and chairs there to be picked up by the charity. So great, right? Except some very well-dressed, SUV driving soccer-mom type was there looking it over. I mean, for shit’s sake, this woman didn’t look like she needed charity. So she was considering taking this table and chairs? That’s frigging STEALING from the poor! Some poor woman with kids, who’s lost her job and can’t pay her medical bills and is having trouble furnishing the apartment she got when she left her abusive husband could use that, but this woman was going to take it? Or maybe some recovering alcoholic who is trying to make a go of it straight. Or a handycapped person who is doing their best to make their own way in life and just needs a little help? Fortunately, either she decided it wasn’t up to her standards, or else couldn’t load it into her SUV and she left. God, some people make me frigging sick.
(P.S. First PIT thread…know I didn’t swear enough, but I’ll try harder next time…)
Perhaps she can afford that SUV because she furnishes her house with inexpensive or free ‘finds’.
Maybe she is the woman who left an abusive husband, and was at least fortunate enough to get the car in the divorce.
I’m broke-ass broke, but my typical suburban station wagon stays pretty clean and so do my kid and I…and if I needed a dinette and saw one sitting out on a curb, you’re damn right I’d stop and see if it was in good enough condition to take into my house.
I’ve been broke before, too, but I would at least go through channels. I wouldn’t pick it up at the curbside before giving the charity the chance to at least process it. I would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve seen a LOT of people picking through the charity boxes and I don’t like it. If you need help, yes, get it. Shop at the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Ask for help from the charities. Don’t just help yourself. It was a Goodwill Box, I believe and that helps handicapped individuals with jobs that raise their self-esteem. She would have deprived them of that chance. If she needed it, well and good. If she didn’t I hope she will one day feel ashamed of what she did (well, was contemplating. She didn’t actually take it.)
Was it a goodwill type place where they sell the donations? Its possible she was just looking it over and checking it out with the intention of comming back later and buying it after it had been processed.
Maybe TroubleAgain was mistaken. However, I still think it’s a good rant and it stands. Why? Becasue this shit does happen. I had some friends a while back who stole a scooter out of a charity drop box. They weren’t rich, they couldn’t have afforded the scooter themselves. But, they are ignoring the whole reason why it was put there. If someone wanted just anyone to take the scooter they would have left it on the curb with a free sign. The same with the table.
Back when I was fist “out on my own” my roomates and I used to cruise the streets looking for homeless furniture to put in our apartment. We got a lot of good stuff, too.
Once we came upon the mother lode sitting on a street corner. We rejoiced! There were tables, a microwave (that worked), lamps, a footstool, chairs . . . everything. We began packing it all into my roomates truck. The neighbors came out to watch, laughing as we loaded it all up, but we ignored the laughter, holding our chins up, and assuring one another that there was no shame in being poor.
There were boxes at the bottom of the pile, and we loaded them in as well, figuring we’d open them when we got home. We returned to our apartment and began decorating. Towards the end of the evening, we opened the boxes to discover family portraits wrapped in paper, nicknacks, and other personal items that generally people don’t set out on the curb to be thrown away. In the last box there was a letter. The letter disclosed the information that a fed-up wife had set all of her husband’s possessions on the corner and wouldn’t take him back until he started attending his Alc-Anon meeting regularly.
I felt terrible, and debated with the others for the rest of the evening on whether we should return the property to the curb where we found it. We also realised why the neighbors had been laughing. Finally it was settled because the roomate who owned the truck put his foot down and flatly refused to help us take it back, or even to allow us to use it to return the man’s things. Being young, stupid, and overruled, I gave up, and we kept the stuff.