Not long after I got out of college, I moved into a house with a fraternity brother and his friends. I didn’t have a lot of furniture and my fraternity brother offered me the use of a dresser while I was there. It wasn’t fancy but I didn’t need much and it did the job. He let me take it with me when I moved out and I kept it years – moving it with me from apartment to apartment and finally to my house.
My house has plenty of space and storage and I found I didn’t really need the dresser anymore. It was still in okay shape, but turned into a catch-all in my office and was taking up a lot of room.
So, I decided to get rid of it on Wednesday evening.
In the cities I’ve lived in, setting out items on the curb on trash night puts them at fair game for the folks that drive around and gather those things to either re-use, re-sell, or – sadly – add to a horde somewhere.
The dresser was on the second floor of my house and after taking the drawers out, I slowly and carefully moved it into the hallway, down a half-flight of stairs, around a corner, and then down the rest of the steps, across the living room, out the front door and onto the porch, then down the concrete steps and across the yard and out to the grass at the curb. I set it on an old towel on the grass, put the drawers back in, and put a “Free” sign on it. Then I took out the rest of the trash and finished mowing the lawn.
A little later, while I was eating dinner and watching a DVD, I heard a noise and realized my neighbor was out by the dresser looking it over.
I went out and confirmed that “yes” it was free. And that I’d be happy to help him move it over to his house. He said that he’d been looking for a dresser for his son’s room and this would be perfect.
We took the drawers back out to move it, then carried it over to his garage – he said his son would help take it inside later. As I brought the last of the drawers over, it started to lightly rain – which wouldn’t have been good for the dresser and made it less useful.
So, just the right amount of timing and coincidence and the dresser I didn’t need anymore got re-purposed and put to good use.
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I had to work a little late yesterday – something that rarely happens in my job. The Graduate Student Government elections were set to close at 5, so I stayed late to shut down the online polls and tabulate the results.
Such as they were.
The elections were supposed to be for a President and Vice-President and a Treasurer. There was one set of Pres/VP running and no one for Treasurer. So, it was something of a moot point. Provided that the presidential candidate voted for himself, they would win.
I think this is the point that the current president was trying to make when she suggested that she just appoint her successors instead of having an election.
She was over-ridden by the graduate school and the office of student life – to my relief. It troubled me that an election process could be subverted by… disinterest.
If that organization no longer needs to exist, then so be it. It should be dissolved by the decision of the student body. If they want to change the parameters so that the president appoints a successor – then again, the student body should decide that.
In the absence of those decisions, we had our ballot and our election. And I followed the parameters of the election as carefully as I could – because I think it matters.
A few weeks ago had been the Undergraduate Student Government elections and next week will be a vote on their revised constitution.
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In lighter news…
Jim and I were out getting some dinner and running errands last evening – and I knew he had been struggling with a rough week.
So, hoping to cheer him up, I told him about a new word I had accidentally made up.
I had been trying to explain the behavior of some of our users to one of my colleagues at work and was trying to come up with “shenanigans”
However, it got hung up in my head and the word “anagram” nearly came out. At the last moment, I inadvertently mixed the two and what emerged was:
“shenaniganagrams”
Which is awesome. Go ahead and say it out loud.
My co-workers didn’t really catch me say this and we moved on. I tried to share this with Jim, but I cracked myself up and as soon as I got this new word out I started laughing so hard I wasn’t making any noise and my eyes started to water.
While I struggled to get control of myself, Jim looked around to see if anyone was watching – or perhaps he was looking for the exit.
Well, at least I enjoyed it.
shenaniganagrams
Feel free to work that into your vocabulary. By the way, you should google anagram – the “did you mean?” is pretty silly.
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It’s been a quiet day here and I think it’s time to crack open a new book and maybe work on some laundry.