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The Chest of Drawers
On my way downtown yesterday, breezing quickly along Douglas St., I passed an old dresser on the sidewalk with a large “free” sign attached to its front, scrawled lazily in black ink. I pulled over and inspected. Not only did the wood look to be of fairly decent quality and solid, the gliding of the drawers was stunning…a thing of wonder really. I was amazed at the construction of this dresser, unlike any that has ever lived in any home of mine. Not that that means much, for the dresser I’ve used is one that used to be red, blue, and yellow, with my name scrawled in cursive across the front. This dresser was at some point in my teenage years painted a dull brown, under the sad guise of implying wood. At some point post college, I painted it again and sanded it down, trying to make it look old like something from the French countryside. This idea did not work. This idea did not even masquerade at working. Moreover, the drawers stuck. Imagine a catheter being removed from a man, grinding the wood on it’s way out. While the drawers were not by any means as personally invasive, and not at all painful, it was an emotional burden, every time I went for socks.
And so there I was, standing on the side of the road, pulling the drawers out, and pushing them in, pulling them out and pushing them in. In that moment, I finally realized how much I’ve hated that chest of drawers I’ve owned all of my life…and of course what followed, was a giant rush, an oceanic surge of excitement that I was, in that very moment about to eradicate my dresser problem.
So, I removed the sign placing it in the top drawer {my new sock drawer} lifted it {goddamn this thing’s heavy} and hoisted it onto the rack on the back of my bike. I realized of course, about halfway through the execution of this idea, as the bike was tumbling onto my legs, and the dresser struggling to leave my arms, what a bad idea this was. Somehow, I managed to keep the dresser airborne, at the minimal cost of some leg scrapes, and set it back on the ground. Shit. What now? There is of course, the imminent possibility that someone else will claim this glorious chest of drawers as I race home to get the car. I contemplated putting a sign that I had laid my claim, but that seemed silly. So I turned around, and rode off.
Just as I made my way down the street, I saw some barefooted gentleman {he must live nearby} with a poofy mess of hair, walking slowly down the street in the direction of my new sock drawer. I stopped. He reached the dresser and began pulling the top drawer in and out, in and out. He began to nod his head. This was not optimal. So I turned around on my bike, and as politely as I could, though knowing full well the answer to the question, “is that yours?” He explained that no it wasn’t, but there was a sign on it when he drove by and he was thinking about taking it, but felt funny with the sign gone. Be honest Jeff. So I told him that I had removed the sign, and was on my way home to retrieve my car so that I could take what I fully believed was now MY dresser home.
I can only imagine that the conversation that followed was rather funny. There was silence. More silence. Poofy hair. I said, “how badly do you want that dresser.” “pretty badly,” he replied. “I want it more than you do,” I said. “I really have to have that dresser.” And that was it. regardless of who wanted it more, we agreed that I had effectively laid claim to it first, and therefore it was mine.
I do admit to feeling like a bit of an asshole about it, but as Tom Robbins would say, timing is everything. I arrived home, carried it into the house, {ugly suburban duplex} placed it where the old one was, moved the contents of the drawers, set the plant and rocks on top, and noticed the degree to which the room looked AND felt better. Amazing. I even confess that I have peeked my head in the room many times since, to nod in joy at the improvement. Strange we humans are. All this for a beat up, pock-marked, thirty year old, free dresser on the side of the road. Trust me, a photo would only make this seem amazingly absurd.
Posted by jeff pitcher at August 26, 2005 11:54 AM
....................................
I had to laugh at the last line because my first thought after reading this was: I want to see a picture. I have yet to see anything roadside that I would haul home, although my mother-in-law somehow sees the beauty in these items and after a little TLC from her, I realize she is right. Congrats.
Posted by: Jodi at August 26, 2005 12:49 PM
I agree with Jodi, my first thought: I wish he had posted a photo.
Posted by: Sari at August 26, 2005 01:43 PM
Yes, photo please!!!
Posted by: Jonis at August 26, 2005 05:18 PM
Yes, A Photo of the old one and the new one please!
Warmly,
Flassie
Posted by: Flassie at August 26, 2005 07:42 PM
I COMPLETELY understand your feelings about your new (to you) dresser. When we moved to Davis, we didn't have any furniture, nor did we have the funds to buy some nice stuff for the living room AND the bedroom. We decided our one big splurge would be a dream bed, because the bed that came with our previous fully-furnished place was AWFUL. And the moment I first climbed into our new bed with its super-comfy mattress, I realized that one of the reasons I'd had insomnia my entire life was because I'd never before owned a decent mattress. So I completely understand (and relate) to you getting such delight from sliding that drawer in and out...and peeking back into the room to look at the dresser. Four months after buying it, I still feel like I've won the lottery every time I lie down on our new mattress. Only thing is, doesn't it make you wonder why you denied yourself something so basic (a new dresser) for so long? I sure wondered that about the mattress...especially since it had contributed to decades worth of sleepless nights...
Posted by: Marilyn at August 28, 2005 05:08 AM
A photo is definitely in order- let the people see this suburban "wonder" you are now living in, and your new chesterfriend. Stop denying us!
Posted by: Jonis at August 28, 2005 03:35 PM
Another vote for the photo! I find great beauty in beloved things, no matter how beat up and nasty we think them to be.
Posted by: Kelly at August 30, 2005 03:58 PM
Anyone who cares about the people of New Orleans, especially our fellow citizens who were too impoverished or too old or to sick to afford an evacuation before the storm, should read this article and forward it/contact your local representatives and demand an explanation and accountability.
(To read the whole story after the excerpts below from the emergency management chief in NO, follow the link at the end. It is written by a senior staff writer at the Philadelphia Daily News.)
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them." The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.
The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the Bush administration came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.
There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:
The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local New Orleans officials say they need."
Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."
To read story in its entirety, go to http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313
Will Bunch (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. Much of this article also appears on his blog at that newspaper, Attytood.
Posted by: Richard at September 1, 2005 07:04 AM
is your old dresser out by the orad now with a sign on it?
Posted by: pink at September 14, 2005 09:37 AM
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