A New Low?

You all know I'm a garage sale fiend. I love to shop. Bargain shop, that is, and where better to bargain shop than at a garage sale? I never buy any type of clothing or anything. I get a thrill out of hunting for bargains on clothes in stores. My mission when garage sale-ing (saling? sailing?) is toys! All those really cool yet expensive things that I see in the stores but are never on sale. At least they're rarely on sale for a price I'm willing to spend. But I think I might have crossed some sort of line this time. Yesterday I did something I never thought I would do! Let's see. Where do I begin?

I guess I should say that I am the one with the bargain-hunting problem. If something is wanted badly enough, Joe is just fine with purchasing it at full price (within reason). I'm the one with the problem! LOL Last year for Hana's birthday, Joe and I really wanted to get Hana this particular thing. They're rather expensive and no matter how hard we looked, we had no luck finding one at any garage sales or even on Craig's List. Hana gets to play on these at gymnastics, so I just can't justify paying a bunch of money for one when we pay for her to go to gymnastics weekly. So she did not receive one for her birthday. But it was no loss to her, she never expected one.

Wednesday is trash day in our neighborhood and this past Wednesday, while on our regular morning walk, we spotted one of these things (am I driving you insane?) sitting next to someone's trash bin on the curb. I didn't think too much about it other than, what a shame! Sure it looked old and worn out, but not useless! Trash day came and went and trash bins had been brought back to the house, yet when Hana and I were on our walk the thing was still sitting on the curb. Then it occurred to me, "Those people really want to get rid of that. The trash guys didn't pick it up because it wasn't bulky trash day, but they want someone to remove it from their curb. They want someone to take it off their hands! Could that someone be me?! I took a picture of it with my phone and sent it to Joe.

Then I called him and we discussed it. I needed to be talked into coming back in the car to get it. He asked, "Are you sure it's being trashed?" I said, "You can tell in the picture that it's halfway in the road. I can't imagine some poor kid goes all the way out to the street to jump on the trampoline! Plus, why was it never brought back to their house with the now-empty trash bins?" We decided that no matter what shape it was in, it was worth picking up and checking out. The worst case scenario would be that it would become our problem trash.

So I did the unimaginable. Hana and I finished our walk, I let her play at the park and then we loaded into the car, headed around the corner and loaded this thing in our trunk. After all, hours later it was still sitting there! Why did I feel like a thief? LOL My first thought was to move really fast so as not to be seen, but once I pulled up and stopped I began to move slowly to let people know that I was going to take it, that I thought it was perfectly okay to take it since it had been set out with the trash. I felt it was important to let them know that I wasn't stealing it! I don't know if anyone saw me or not, but if they did, they certainly did not care. Have I sunk to a new low? I just don't know! But what I do know is that (once thoroughly cleaned) it made one very special little girl incredibly happy.

She doesn't care at all what it looks like! She can still jump on it! Maybe it can be repaired and fixed up, maybe it can't. Maybe Hana will just jump on it until it completely falls apart, and if that's the case, then it was well worth my pride! ;-)