Do not judge me, and my new lawn furniture that I grabbed off the trash pile on a neighbor's curb.
Jessica Burgess
Clearly Unedited
Look, it's not like I'm a hobo or anything.
I mean, I'm not going around picking used cigars out of ashtrays and carefully stowing them in my bindle.
And I never eat out of the garbage. Except that one time, when I decided not to diet after I'd already tossed the Zingers.
No, I am a high-class person who just happens to think it is absolutely fine to take perfectly good furniture that wasteful people have left for the trash collectors.
Unfortunately, this guy who apparently enjoys having a large credit card balance owed to Patio Furniture World does not understand my thrifty (and frankly, genius) ways.
"You call it 'trash picking'?" he asked in a tone of incredulity while we dragged home my new table and chairs that will only need a little rust removal and primer and paint to be as good as new. "Do you go 'Dumpster diving' too?"
"No," I said primly. "I do not go 'Dumpster diving.' Although that seems rather fun and a good option for budget-savvy people to consider, now that you mention it."
He rolled his eyes.
"Won't it be more expensive in time and supplies to fix up these chairs than it would be to just go buy some new ones?" he asked while I cleared a workspace in the garage.
"I can't hear you," I called to him over the sound of my furious sandpapering. "Now be a good boy and run to Home Depot and buy me one of everything in the paint department. Use the grocery money. Love you!"
He does not understand, but when I finish, I will have a beautiful vintage patio set for our yard, something you can't find in any big chain furniture store.
Everyone will want to sit in my new chairs. And I will let them, while magnanimously offering them a cigar from my bindle.
Jessica loves the word "hobo." E-mail her at jburgess@quickdfw.com.
