Free bed

Somehow, we find ourselves with an extra bed that must leave the house to let us configure the upstairs to our liking.

In the past, we've been able to put cast-off items like appliances, furniture and other stuff at the curb in front of our house and someone would come along and help themselves to it - sometimes in less than an hour.

Not so with this bed. Maria and I wrestled it down the stairs and out the front door yesterday afternoon and put it back together at curbside. Then we waited for it to disappear. The Little League Baseball season is underway in the park across the intersection and there was lots of traffic up and down our street, but nobody took the bed. We even advertised it on three local Facebook pages.

Finally, as dusk approached and it looked like rain, we hauled it up onto the front porch.

I suspect the reason nobody wants it has to do with the disgusting lifestyle of the people who rented our house for nine years, up until last August. When they moved out, they put a huge pile of trash at the curb and it reeked so badly that neighborhood kids crossed the street rather than walk past it. It could be that townspeople, knowing what kind of animals lived in our house previously, don't want the bed because they think it is filled with bedbugs and/or hideous stink.

I amended the advertisements to emphasize that it's clean and we brought it with us when we moved here from Arkansas and that there's nothing wrong with it, we just have one bed too many.

If nobody takes it before Friday, we'll put it out for the trash collection.