![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Freecycle.org
Jul. 14th, 2007 09:24 pmWhen I am not hard at work on Chapter 4 of teh crack, I have been giving stuff away on my local Freecycle mailing list. Giving stuff away is fun, nearly as much fun as getting stuff for free. Which is good because I have mostly done the former.
Basically, you list things you don't want and people email you to come take it away. It's the lazy person's yard sale, but more effective than a yard sale in finding a home for useful things of no particular value. In my area, it is a moderated Yahoo group. I scored a free composter and have given away any number of things that I haven't missed or am very happy to see gone.
Somewhat depressing was when I gave away a steam cleaner I had gotten as a gift and ppl wrote to tell me how desperately they needed it. Their situations were no different from mine, including someone else with three small children, yet I never bothered to get it out of the case. I guess it's a personal thing whether one feels one NEEDS steam cleaned surfaces in one's home.
Really the clean thing is a bit of a fetish. Especially within one's own home, and double-extra especially regarding a spouse or children. Frankly, you are bathed in their bacterial fauna all the time. I won't deny that hand-washing can more-or-less reduce your odds of catching a cold, and that it is vitally important for food service workers and health workers, and after frequenting petting zoos, but frankly, the world is chock full of bacteria; Americans really ought to come to peace with that fact. It weirds me a little to read of people who end friendships because the person does not wash quite thoroughly enough after going to the restroom. Their friend is probably more likely to back over them by accident with their SUV than give them a serious illness through casual contact.
Basically, you list things you don't want and people email you to come take it away. It's the lazy person's yard sale, but more effective than a yard sale in finding a home for useful things of no particular value. In my area, it is a moderated Yahoo group. I scored a free composter and have given away any number of things that I haven't missed or am very happy to see gone.
Somewhat depressing was when I gave away a steam cleaner I had gotten as a gift and ppl wrote to tell me how desperately they needed it. Their situations were no different from mine, including someone else with three small children, yet I never bothered to get it out of the case. I guess it's a personal thing whether one feels one NEEDS steam cleaned surfaces in one's home.
Really the clean thing is a bit of a fetish. Especially within one's own home, and double-extra especially regarding a spouse or children. Frankly, you are bathed in their bacterial fauna all the time. I won't deny that hand-washing can more-or-less reduce your odds of catching a cold, and that it is vitally important for food service workers and health workers, and after frequenting petting zoos, but frankly, the world is chock full of bacteria; Americans really ought to come to peace with that fact. It weirds me a little to read of people who end friendships because the person does not wash quite thoroughly enough after going to the restroom. Their friend is probably more likely to back over them by accident with their SUV than give them a serious illness through casual contact.
