I [heart] Freecycle
I hate seeing perfectly good things go to waste, and thus I love Freecycle. I was turned on to it over the summer after it was mentioned on the venerable copyeditors list. I've been able to give away a whole bunch of entirely useful but no longer needed or wanted stuff: old lamps, junk jewelry, wrong-size furnace filters, the old kitchen faucet I replaced, a hand mixer, some leftover fabric, even the old but mint-condition stereo-in-a-cabinet the house's previous owners left for me.

Freecycle is a set of local mailing lists. If you have something you want to give away, you create an "OFFER:" post. If you are looking for something, you create a "WANTED:" post. When people respond to your offer, you decide who gets the item by whatever criteria you like. If you happen to have a wanted item and are willing to part with it, you contact the person who posted and offer it to him or her directly. The only rule is that items must be free.

Freecycling seems to bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. Every week there's a handful of people asking for a car (shockingly, a number of times accompanied by "must be newer than 2000 model" or some such) or a laptop ("working only, no more than 2 years old with at least 512 K of RAM, or don't bother replying"). More power to them if people actually receive these things, but really. Then there are those who post the same obscure ("need hatchback door for a green 1982 Datsun") and/or ridiculous ("desperately want a monkey") wanteds day after day until someone has to tell them to stop. (Dude, if you've posted your wanted five days in a row and no one has responded, chances are no one on this list has one to give you.) And of course there are a handful of wannabe scam artists present, whose messages you must scan for the meaning between the lines: "Tired of your [insert expensive collectible here: Hummels, old train sets, old coins, pre-1970s Barbies . . .]? I'll give them a good home [for about 10 minutes before I turn around and sell them for a fortune on eBay]."

Unlike the copyeditors list, the Freecycle lists I belong to represent a wide cross section of the local community and as such are sources of endless amusement and incredulity. Leaving aside the iffy spelling, lack of punctuation, and shoddy grammar inherent in general-circulation e-mail lists, some of the posts are downright mystifying. My favorite so far this week is this, presented as is and in its entirety (save for the contact information):

This is a hoover steamvac, the ones are upright just like a vacumm, It works good want my husband to buy me a new one so im getting rid of this one tired of him saying you got one you dont need a new one

Okay, I'm thinking the husband has a point here. If it works well (or "good," if you prefer direct quotes), why does she need a new one? Not that it's really any of my business. I just find these little insights into our more-more-more culture fascinating.
- posted by Lori @ 1:12:00 PM | permanent link | |