Lawnchairs and faith in humankind

We live semi-rural, and on a somewhat major road, so we get the occasional ignorant driver who throws junk onto the side of the road, along our property. Mostly it's fast-food bags or wrappers, and the soda or alcohol can or bottle (a pox on those who throw glass bottles! little kids live here, dork-face!). And occasionally it's something larger, like an old tire.

A few days ago, someone apparently pulled over and left three lawn chairs. Two were kids' size, in pretty good condition, and one was adult size, in mediocre condition.

After finding them there, I joked to my wife's family that I should put a sign on them and try to sell them. And, after a day or two, I did.

I set them up in an arc, and put a sign on two of them -- one for each direction of traffic -- saying ''$5 (for all three!)''. I also put a plastic container, weighted down with rocks, and wrote ''PAY HERE'' on it. A bit of a social experiment.

Put it up on the late morning of Saturday, May 28th.

Sunday evening, after dark, Ralphie started barking like nobody's business. Told him off, but then after a while, realized that a car had pulled up near our property, and was parked there, idling. After a few moments, it drove away.

A few minutes after that, I heard my father-in-law (lives across the street) calling out to us. I opened the window and asked what he wanted. He said that the car had taken two of the chairs -- but left the not-as-good-one -- and also left me the five dollars! He handed me the five bucks, and went home.

For the rest of the evening, every time I thought about someone actually paying the five bucks for the ''free'' chairs, I'd laugh giddily to myself. Pretty nifty, to get five bucks for ''found'' items. And, it helps to restore one's faith in humankind: it was after dark, so they could've just taken the chairs; they didn't have to pay the five bucks.

I'm saving the five bucks, to save on something special or symbolic: I want to be able to point to a garage sale hammer (or whatever) and say ''See this hammer? I bought this with the five bucks I...''

I put a new sign on the remaining chair, for one dollar. We'll see if it goes. :)


--GG



P.S. This would've made a good Mentos commercial.