light bulb

"60 watt, white globe, medium base"


You can also have whatever hair you can get out of my shower's drain. Oh, and bellybutton lint available as well.

How far would you go to collect someone's 60 watt light bulb? Would you drive an hour? A minute? A second? Me neither. I might be willing to shout "bring it to me over here." Actually, no, that's not true. I would be willing to nod and say "enh, OK," if you were standing inches away and offered it to me.

Light bulb??

Catchphrase

"Catchphrase game. It's the non-electronic version but still tons of fun."


Imagine my disappointment when I learned this wasn't what it sounded like. Game? Never heard of it. I wanted a catchphrase. Perhaps:

"Wrong again, Butchy!"

or

"Pressed and folded, you know it!"

or

"Gimme the handle!"

or

"Never not been true, right?"

or

"You say band, I say combo."

or the old standard

"What made me jump?!"

Paper Footballs

What's that? Paper footballs? I don't get it.

My buddy made a ton of paper footballs of assorted sizes for a class project.

Teacher - "Students, I have a material I want you to learn about. It's called paper. You can fabricate things using this material. I'm handing some around so you can see what it's like. Now, your assignment is to go home and make something out of this material. Again, it's called paper. Pick something you like, and make it out of paper. Keep doing it until you get it right. Bring your finest example to class."

Now I have them

Student - "Bro, I had to make a ton of footballs out of this paper stuff. I don't have room for them, and I'd hate to waste them, I mean, they're made of paper. Special stuff. Can you take 'em for awhile? I know your mom has room in the basement."

Friend - "No problem, brah, my mom's mentioned paper before. Sounds cool. And you know how much I like football. And footballs.

and want them to go to a good home.

Friend - "I've been stuck with these awhile, but Mom says they have to go, and I can't get in touch with my friend who made them. He wrote me a rambling note about Japan and something called 'origami,' and nobody knows where he's gone. I'm not just throwing these things away, though, they're made of paper."

These are well-made paper footballs

Measured against what, exactly?

that are sure to spark some fun.

Some people might not equate paper footballs and fun. But when you say sparks and paper footballs, that does sound fun. If I call it pyrophilia, will you judge me less harshly?.

Beat the heat for free...

Are these magical refrigerant paper footballs? Or is this just how you end all your listings? "Free Dresser. Beat the heat for free." "Free Comfortable Chair. Beat the heat for free."

Acetylene System

"Acetylene tanks, pressure values, gauges, hoses and cart"





Don't forget the rust, the years sitting idle, the lack of any sort of inspection, and the raw, heart-paralyzing danger. But hey, as we've said before what could possibly go wrong?

Really Comfortable Chair

You would think that free stuff wouldn't have to be "sold." It shouldn't take a marketing campaign to give something away. But Vintage Microwave is built on the premise than there are things undesirable at even the low, low price point of free. So people may just have things gruesome enough that they have to use verbal sleight-of-hand to try to unload them.

Accordingly, there is a lexicon to free stuff "take-it-away" persuasion. In this way, it's like real estate. In that realm, a tiny apartment is "cozy." If there's a strip mall across the street, it's "central to everything."

In the Free Stuff section, as we've seen, something may be good for an "art project" or suitable for "Burning Man." But if a piece of free seating is really ugly, eye-piercingly unpleasant, unlookable-at, you can be pretty sure it will be described as "comfortable." You see, they're trying to get you to think with your ass, instead of your eyes. Because your eyes are having none of it.

Electric Range

Thinking about demodeling your kitchen? Maybe doing penance for the many undiscovered crimes you've committed over the years? Hair-shirting for the sheer pathological pleasure of it? We have a stove for you. It's about 40 years old, will overload any circuit, will boil water in an hour, and will raise its figurative middle-finger to the environment and your electric bill every time you turn it on. In short, if you hate yourself, you need to pick up this stove.

Medical: Old Colposcope

Don't know what a colposcope is? I didn't either, but the internet quickly cured that little blind spot. A colposcope "functions as a lighted binocular microscope to magnify the view of the cervix, vagina, and vulvar surface." Yep, it's a device that inspects down there. Interiorly.

This is an old one, as the subject line says. Look at that picture. Now look at a modern-day colposcope:



Now that you know what a colposcope is, and know that the one at issue is at least three generations behind current down-there-inspecting technology, tell me what you're going to do with the old colposcope. Set up a back-alley colposcopy practice? Give it to your child and say, "now you can really play doctor"? There are other fetishistic possibilities, but really, they're too horrifying to give voice to, so I'll just stop now. In any event, enjoy your free colposcope, and I hope to god you find a free autoclave to join it in your free medical device collection. Ultimately, I just declare "eww."

Laptop

FREE LAPTOP FOR "SOMEONE IN NEED" OR "STUDENT" ONLY

Cool, I'm (1) "in need" of a laptop and (2) a "student" of the world. I qualify - hook me up!

This is a dell laptop with external hard drive. It has 128 MB of Ram..It is in excellent condition....You will need to get a wireless card for it to get onto the internet. I had AOL downloaded on it and was able to access that as well as the internet.

128 mb! Awesome! I should be able to run a lot of sophisticated software, like "calculator" and "Free Cell." It will be compatible with no existing printer, but hey, beggars can't be choosers. Word processing will probably require a minute per character, and excel will require the patience of an autistic child's parent, but like I said, awesome! One Two Eight! One Two Eight! w00t!

And excellent condition, cool! It's surprising that a 20 lb. laptop from the early 90's would have avoided being dropped so many times that it would end up in poor condition, but the exception proves the rule, right! Let's calculaaate!

I AM NOT GIVING THIS AWAY TO THE FIRST PERSON THAT CONTACTS ME.....IN ORDER TO GET THIS LAPTOP.......

Oh shit, which caller do I have to be to win this giant paperweight? I'm willing to take it off your hands for the Free Cell and all, but I have to do something?

YOU MUST WRITE ME A PARAGRAPH OF WHY YOU NEED THIS LAPTOP. ARE YOU DOWN ON YOUR LUCK? DO YOU KNOW OF SOMEONE WHO JUST LOST THERE JOB AND NEEDS A LAPTOP TO HELP FIND THEM A JOB? IF I CHOOSE YOU......YOU MUST PICK IT UP.....

You have to be out of your ancient-computer-owning mind. You want me to convince you to give me your adding machine? Again, I'll take it, as a favor to you, to lighten your load, but I'm not going to . . . you know what? In fact, fuck you, YOU write ME a paragraph explaining why I should take it for less than a $10 disposal fee. Start writing.

I COULD EASILY MAKE A FEW BUCKS WITH THIS COMPUTER BUT I WOULD RATHER HAVE IT GO TO SOMEONE "WHO REALLY NEEDS IT".

No, no you couldn't. You could bring it to the electronics recycling facility, and give them the fee mentioned above. You could easily lose a few bucks with the computer. Or you could just give it away, without batshit crazy conditions. Instead, it will weigh down your home's foundation for eternity.

ALL I ASK IN RETURN? "PAY IT FORWARD TO SOMEONE ELSE".

You mean, like, by punching a stranger in the gut? Sorry, the buck stops here. "Pay it forward" yourself.

Two rifle cases

soft cases for carrying rifles, 44" and 48"


I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands . . . and unzip and remove it from its soft carrying case.

Reel to Reel Tapes

"We have a bunch (two bags) of my parents' old reel to reel tapes, but no longer have the tape player--anyone out there want these? I have no idea what is on them."


Yes, before the mp3, before the CD, before the cassette, before the eight-track, there was another format - the reel-to-reel tape. Less convenient than a vinyl LP (what if they found a way to put music on spaghetti?), and less durable than a mayfly on a trout-patrolled pond in the spring, the reel-to-reel was crucial to professional music recording, but was a consumer electronics nightmare.

It did not survive. Today, if you walk the boulevards of major American cities, knocking on doors, you will be more likely to find someone willing to tell you that they expect Britney Spears to get through to Pope Benedict and secure a position as the first female Catholic priest than someone who owns a home stereo component reel tape player.

Nonetheless, for every obsolete technology there is a cadre of obsessives willing to bore you all night long with details on the magical merits of their chosen medium. Even these folks have their limits, however. Sure, they like to have things to play on the old Telefunken, but they're not going to drive to your house and sort through the bag on the promise of that one recording, that one time, made by that one guy, that probably isn't in there.


P.S. - Here at Vintage Microwave, we have to be cautious about our subjects. People do post "jokes" in the Free Stuff section. Not-very-funny, nobody's-ever-done-that!-boo-yaa! attempts to laugh it up, you know, like "free white toddler," or "free - my self-esteem." We obviously avoid engaging these charlatans, but there are other posts that are harder to decipher. We must determine if something is a legitimately inconceivable giveaway, or someone "mixing it up" with their comedy stylings. Accordingly, while it would have been shooting fish in a barrel, we declined to comment on the no, no a thousand times no, it can't possibly really be . . . "slightly used vibrator/dildo."