May 28 2009
Things Work Together
Craigslist is my friend. I browse it daily, just looking for stuff to do or stuff to buy or sell. It’s dangerous, really. So, when I found a set of table and chairs that are just what I wanted, I roped my husband into driving an hour to pick it all up. I got it for $50 less than what was listed. I was pretty thrilled.
Well, we live in an apartment. Now what? I have an eat-in kitchen that barely had room for our round table. Now I have a six-person formal dining table and chairs in an itty-bitty space. So, we dismantled our old table and hauled it upstairs to our back bedroom.
Now this back bedroom really doesn’t serve much of a purpose except to hold a bed that people rarely sleep in, and my huge hope chest and a bookcase. There’s a nightstand and t.v., too, stuffed in that room somehow. On top of all that, I like to put boxes and boxes of refugee household items that are donated through a local church and that I pick up through Freecycle, and, you guessed it, Craigslist.
Now I had a table, four chairs, and about 6 boxes of stuff the church just called me to come pick up this week. I went to a nearby town on Monday to pick up some more stuff that a lady wanted to donate. Of this last load, my husband and I trashed things like used plant pots, straws, and plastic silverware. There were several great items, however, so I brought home some more boxes.
My poor husband agreed to clean out his truck and spend all Tuesday night hauling this table and chairs, and all the boxes down to Denver to drop off at the refugee resettlement agency storage unit. We were going to meet halfway with a representative from the organization, but, of course, their truck broke down, and so on to Denver we went.
Just as all the boxes were finally unloaded and the table and chairs were safely inside the storage unit, the guy from the resettlement agency ran back into grab a box of pots and pans. He still had to go and finish setting up an apartment for an arrival of refugees that night. He’d been trying to get two apartments set up all day, but the truck kept breaking down. It was now about 7:30 p.m. The family would likely arrive the next day, and the boxes of stuff were being put to use immediately by some very tired people who were going to experience peace and a bit of security for the first time in a long while.
