Dear Santa...

There's nothing like a little garbage scavenging to lift your spirits.
Friday was Big Trash night, or Curbside Christmas, as I like to call it. It's an event we look forward to eagerly every year.
We started trash when we were still making decent money--back in the heady days of the Clinton surplus and the dot.com bubble. Before there ever was an economic meltdown or a television show called American Pickers. Back then, we garbage picked because it was fun. Now, of course, we feel a little more in tune with the Joads and do it to give ourselves a treat we wouldn't normally be able to afford.
We've gotten quite a few good things over the years. A servicable, if ugly, long table. Plastic outdoor chairs. A bathroom sink with the old-fashioned brass fixtures still intact.
This year we went out with a plan to be selective. Two sons have moved out of town since last year, so we didn't have enough room for any extra stuff, no matter how fanciful or fun it may be.
Specifically, we needed outdoor patio furniture.
I should stop and say here that we have had a deck since the '80s, but we have never ever paid for outdoor furniture. The round table, chaises and chairs we have now are the same ones a friend of mine gave us when she updated her own set. In addition, we have a bunch of various plastic and metal/plastic chairs picked up from garbage nights past.
That was probably 15 or 20 years ago, though, and even though we've replaced the cushions and the umbrella, the hardware is beginning to fail. Too many plastic straps have broken. One chaise is all done and had to be tossed.
So we took to the side streets. We drove. And we drove. And for blocks...nothing.
I don't mean nothing as in not the things we were looking for. No, people were putting out real garbage this time. Rotting plywood. Tatty, moldy looking and obviously broken recliners. Sketchy plastic children's playsets.
For block after block, the only competition we had was the guys with flatbeds picking up lawnmowers and scrap metal. I became more and more glum. In my head, I began writing about how the recession has lasted so long that even the quality of the garbage has declined.
We passed a flatbed guy going over one of the more promising piles. We talked about how much further we'd go before calling it an evening.
And then...Paydirt! Three very nice deck chairs. Black metal frames with plastic straps in good shape. (The fourth one had broken seat straps. We left it for the other picker, who caught up with us just as we were loading them up.) All we have to do now is paint the metal on our table to match, and get new cushions and an umbrella (again) and our deck will no longer seem so much like a hobo camp.
As an extra plus, I opened up a horrible-looking guitar case at the same place and found inside a three-quarters sized six-string guitar in great shape. Mike put new strings on it today and it's fine. Now to learn the chords to "Brandy."
The only sour note was just before we got home. We spied a small leather (or maybe faux leather) couch that would have been a great replacement for the one in my daughter's room (which was also secured from someone's curbside). She and Mike were enthusiastic about getting it. But alas, it turned out to be a sleeper couch and they couldn't even lift it into the van, let alone get it up to the third floor. Oh well. Easy come, easy go.
So Big Trash Night becomes, once again, my favorite part of the summer. I can hardly wait for next weekend, when it's garbage night for our wealthier neighbors to the west who, presumably, can still afford to buy new.