Old Chair

We considered posting a picture or two of something mummified to compare this too, but the pictures of mummies were a little grosser than we like to be. This chair is all the gross we can handle.


Beware its curse: "As for all men who shall sit here . . . there will be judgment . . . an end shall be made for him . . . I shall seize his neck like a bird . . . I shall cast the fear of myself into him."

Consider it done. We're already afraid.

Dead Horse

"This is a skeleton of a horse I found in the desert. I brought it home for an accent to my cactus garden. We are moving and I cannot take the horse with me. It is missing the head and two legs, but all else is there.Use it for the same purpose as I did, or for an art project..."


An art project, huh? No comment, I don't want to . . . beat a dead horse. Hey-OHH!!!

Poker Table

I like that this still bears the blood stains from the last game played at this table. I picture the full house made on the river and turn cards, which made four of a kind for the guy at the other side of the table. Full house guy goes all in, and slices his wrists when the four of a kind shows itself.

Patio Chair

Imagine stepping out of the pool and letting your eyes come to rest on this. "I can stand here, or I can sit on that and be uncomfortable, dirty, and - maybe, just maybe - infected." Tough decision . . .

BBQ

Here comes summertime! Gimme a dog!


Wait you're gonna cook it on that? I thought that was just a prop for your haunted house last Halloween. I'll just stick to beer.

Wolf Range

"The photo is not in its current element. It is behind the restaurant in the rain right now . . . Worked like a charm before we moved it outside and realized it had so much wear and tear . . . It has a ton of caked up grease on it (from a chinese restaurant that used it for +/- 10-15 years). It has rusty parts which are corroding and very thin walls where insulation is coming through . . . people have been picking pieces and parts from it."

It really reduces the load here when a prior post can simply be reused.

White Couch

I believe this sofa may be made of marshmallows. If not, I hope it's a clever use of an orphaned slab of polar ice cap.

Lamp Shade

"This lamp shade is in perfect condition."


Sure, if "mossy" is how you define "perfect." While I'm a fan of the novel and environmentally sound Living Roof, I'm not sure I want it in my living room.

Ch-ch-ch-Chia . . .

Chicken Coop House

Didn't we just pass Proposition Two here in California to outlaw this sort of thing?

If I'm eating the eggs, I want to know the accommodations were a little spiffier.

Opened White Wine

"We have 4 bottles of opened, mostly full wine leftover from Thanksgiving, pretty decent but we're not big wine people, and it seems like a waste to just pour them down the drain."


Another member of the Vintage Microwave Action Team had a simple, visceral response to this one - "what is wrong with people?"* Ultimately, that's what we're always asking here, isn't it?

The only people who would respond to this post are the ones you least want to give your address to.



*Later amended to: "let's go get that."

Athletic Socks

Your soft focus and arty "they could be anemones" photographic approach notwithstanding, these are still used socks. No one with internet access wants used socks. There may be a village in Taliban-occupied Pakistan where they might come in handy, but shipping them to the trash can will be much cheaper.

1940's Fridge

This really should have been listed a month ago. The poster might have had some success with the Halloween crowd: "Scary fridge - free! Store fake body parts and keep your 'bucket of blood' punch nice and cool!"

Unfortunately, now that Halloween is over, the only people who will respond are ones who want to store real body parts and blood. Fridge? Or "Saw" movie prop? Sometimes, when I look at the picture, I think I see the ghosts of children who suffocated in that thing.

Antique Couch

“I got this couch off craigslist, thinking I was going to get it redone, and never had the time. It was left out in the weather for sometime before I got it......"

This post comes from Austin Craigslist, and judging by the pictures, “was left out in the weather for sometime [sic]” must mean at least one, if not all, of the following:

…was used as part of the armadillo enclosure at the Austin Zoo since its founding in 1990.

…was tragically caught in the crossfire of the Charles Whitman tower shootings at the University of Texas, and subsequently moved into a particularly unsavory frat house.

…was severely damaged during the Colorado River flood of 1900, as well as exposed to every other rainstorm in the ensuing 108 years.

…was inside the General Land Office Building during the Texas Archive War of 1842 where it took a cannon blast at close range, then laid low until 1987 when it was moved to the backyard of Stubbs BBQ to act as an ashtray. It currently holds the title of Most Gruesomely Deteriorated Inanimate Object in Austin, followed distantly by Willie Nelson’s guitar and Matthew McConaughey’s brain.

Enema Kits

"Free - - - 7-8 Fleet Enema Kits. These are unopened but have passed their expiration date. They will still do the job."


Yeah, this is too easy, so I won't say too much.

Numbers. First, I am really beginning to wonder about the job our schools do. Too many people are being left behind in math class. If the Free Stuff section has taught me something, it's that any counting task above 2 is an insurmountable challenge. This happens so much, we need a new tag for it. "How many enema kits do I have? Honestly, I'm not sure. There are a few, several, some. Bring your neighborhood mathlete and maybe we can nail it down. My son was just visiting on Labor Day break from Cornell. He thinks it's 7-8. I have to take his word for it, he's a sharp kid."

Past expiration date. The manufacturer exhorts you not to use these. They have gone bad. But what the hell does the manufacturer know? Hell, they just want you to buy more enema kits. It's for your ass, not your mouth, right? Is your ass picky? I didn't think so. Asses make do. Take the enema kits.

"They will still do the job." What job is that, poster? Oh, enemizing, ass-flushing, thanks for the image. I come to the internet looking for a free couch, and I'm forced to think about enemas. The internet is dangerous.

Unopened. Thank heaven for small favors.

4 Medical Lounges

Looking at this item, it's hard to see how it could have any possible use outside a medical office of some kind. But there can't be a doctor in the world who would be willing to allow it in the door. "I really could use a medical lounge for exams, but I don't want my patients to be infected by this thing." Maybe some back-alley, small-time criminal doctor? You know, the one in the movies who smokes under the light of a single bulb while removing a bullet from the stick-up man's shoulder? Maybe he could use it. But are there really four of those practitioners nearby?

Maybe a Burning Man medical office will take them.

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."

Armchair, cont.

"Comfortable and clean. But it is well worn"




Yesterday, I addressed the "clean" portion of the post. Today, "comfortable."

Can I really be comfortable if I fear contamination? More significantly, can I really be comfortable if I believe my life is of so little value that I should settle for this chair? This chair does not say, “I feel comfortable.” It says, “I am vanquished.”

Armchair

"Comfortable and clean. But it is well worn"






Clean? There's no way something this ripped-to-shreds has remained clean. The dust mites alone must number in the millions. Add the dust, the invisible-to-the-eye fungi, the old dead skin, and the dormant bacteria, and "clean" is just a random word that has been applied to this chair.

I celebrate the poster's decision to upgrade his decor from flophouse chic. Getting rid of your just-above-homeless furniture is probably one of the twelve steps prescribed by Narcotics Anonymous. But another has to be "stop lying." Clean?

Beds in Berkeley

The students are getting ready to leave, and with that comes mass unloadings of unwieldy materials. Right now there are many futons, mattresses, and box springs available in my town. But whenever I see one, I think of this recent headline and hope they end up in the trash or in a roadside bonfire.

Bidet

This is one of those giveaways whose inherent flaws become apparent with a little context.

Let's say I own a home.

Let's say I have the financial wherewithal to remodel my bathroom dramatically, so that space is made for an additional appliance, and plumbing is rerouted and modified to accommodate it.

Let's say I'm the kind of person who is so obsessed with French mores that I answer the phone with "bonjour," and spend at least a week every year in the same rental in the Marais.

Let us, finally, say I am so equally obsessed with genital cleanliness that a bidet is on my list of absolute-must-haves as I undertake the radical bathroom reconstruction I've undertaken.

In short, I am a hardcore bidet partisan, not a casual bidet hobbyist. There is no such thing as a casual bidet hobbyist. I sing songs about bidets - "oh bidet, the skies were grey, but now you're here to stay, and I'm so happaayyy . . ." I coined a phrase - "Once you go bidet, you never go away.*" I f*cking LOVE bidets. My bathroom remodel is the greatest moment of my life, and I am overpaying the contractor by a factor of 3 to get it done one day earlier.

Given these conditions, is this the bidet I'm going to choose for the project?


* if people look at me puzzled, I will occasionally add ". . . from the bidet."