Wow it’s Christmas in August for me. Yesterday my husband and I were driving down Notre Dame Blvd and he spotted a discarded push mower leaned up against a dumpster at an apartment house. I have been wanting one for my tenants’ yards, just for those little patches of crab grass that spring up around shady trees. I found two on Craigslist – one in Napa for $35, the other in Redwood City for about same. Too far. Home Depot has one for $89 – too expensive for my budget. But I knew I’d find one if I just kept looking. Then BAM! We’re driving down the street one day, and there’s one just leaned up against a dumpster next to a very shabby mattress and box spring. Hello Dolly!
And it’s dandy – in good shape, working order. Fresh cut grass stuck to the blades. And oh gee – Made in the USA! Looks like they only discarded it because they had moved into an apartment building. Boy howdy I jumped out of the truck and loaded that fellow right in the back, waved Thank You! at the windows of the building, and drove away feeling like a lady who saved eighty-nine bucks. Always good to keep something out of the landfill too.
My husband and I are practicing attrition, a $64 word for cutting our spending. Partly because we’re tight right now, having spent a bunch of money doing repairs and replacing old fixtures at the rentals, and partly because, we want to support American manufacturing and the new trade deals the president is seeking. Unless it’s a necessity – like a new toilet seat – if we can’t find American-made, we don’t buy it.
Yeah, we had to buy a China-made toilet seat for the new American-made toilet we bought for the rental, which I find ironic, but here’s the reality – we didn’t find any seats that were made in the USA in the price range we are in. Life is full of compromise.
But compromise is a two-way street – when we went to buy the toilet seat we found the mower. Get out!
I love that about our town – when somebody has something they don’t need that’s still perfectly good, they put it at the end of their driveway with a ‘FREE’ sign. Just the day before we found the mower, we were driving along Vallombrosa and there it was – the wheelbarrow I’ve been wanting. A nice old metal barrow with good wooden handles. Obviously used, but here’s the thing – the tire was still good, newish even. We use our wheelbarrows for various chores until the arms or the tire rot off, and then they are used for flower beds. They’re so expensive, we haven’t replaced the last one. Until the other day, when, there it was, alongside the road, with a carboard box saying ‘FREE’. Inside the box there was the perfectly good tire and all the parts to put it back on.
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, you just have to believe.
Chico Taxpayers Association 