This is my first ever blog on the Franklin Family website. I am officially cementing my status a pushing 30 Gen Xer. So I thought that I would reveal to our general audience my current obsession (ie. time waster): collecting other people’s cast offs (by creepily driving through alleys and loading peoples trash into my car) and then selling them on Craigslist. This is akin to the current phenomena of “freeganism” only without the dumpsters and the slightly rotting food. So whenever the kids are sleeping in the backseat and I have a little time to kill, I drive up and down the alleys of my TAD (Thirty-something Affluent Democratic) neighborhood, looking for interesting things that people have set out for the trash man to pickup. I then spray bleach the heck out of my findings, squirt it off with the neighbors hose (we don’t have one of our own), take pictures of it, and put it up for sale on Craigslist. So far, I’ve had the most luck selling Little Tikes stuff. This stuff is the bright, obnoxious plastic kids toys that litter the backyards of many a suburban household. And it turns out that many mothers in Chicagoland are itching to get a good deal on say, a giant blue and yellow picnic table, or a round water table in good condition, with only 2 barely noticeable cigarette burns on the top. (I mean, who needs an ash tray when you’ve got your kids water table sitting right there?) I made $40 last week selling those things. I have also found that it helps to offer to deliver the goods, that way I guilt the buyer into not rejecting my stuff, being as I drove the crap all of the way out to their house and all. This week, I’ve got a dirty, cobwebbed turtle sandbox, a giant plastic country kitchen, and a large exersaucer sitting in my backyard, just waiting for their turn to be spit-shined and put up for sale.
