Spokesperson.

Today was clean out the garage day. I unloaded 10 years of cumbersome,dusty, out of date, junk!I had so much stuff that it made a huge pile at the end of the driveway. My pile grew really big for a little while, I had chairs, end tables , pillows , a salon trolley, perm rods and old set rollers, maniquin heads from when I was in beauty school. I mean these heads had BLUE eyeshadow and jacked up hair styles. Boxes and boxes of country art, folky 1994 teddy bears and rocking horse kinda crap, you remember the counrty blue and mauve , crafty heart cutout woodshelfy kinda stuff. Tons of it, all at the end of my driveway. It was so much stuff I really was beginning to doubt if the trash truck would pick up that much stuff. Then all of sudden I noticed that I had really been bringing the stuff out at a pretty good pace and my pile hadn't really continued to grow. In fact it seemed smaller??? Then I see them. They see me. People. Lurking people. Off to the side, kinda shifty, trash pickin' people!!! A lot of them. Some had cars and some were on bikes. One old dude ( obviously the first man on the scene) was on a little scooter, he had a little dog riding on the floor board of the scooter and he had his own little pile of my former junk stacked up off to the side. As he beamed with pride over his new found treasures and whispered to the other pickers I could tell that these were professional pickers. Then another dude(the spokesperson) took one giant step forward and with his grubby little hand pointed at the shrinking remains of my once glorious pile of crap and said "We just thought if we didn't make a mess that you wouldn't mind us going through....?" I said " of course not". I could barely get out of the way fast enough, my pile of crap was bumrushed!! The old scooter dude gave an "its ok" signal to his wife who was parked around the corner somewhere and she pulls up in a van , jumps out and in a full on sprint attacks my pile. I can't explain what a bizarre feeling it is to watch people fight over your trash . I can however tell you what I was thinking...in the natural progession of things..."these people are crazy, crazy trash pickin' people," then I thought.." do they really like this stuff? Well, they should it is pretty good stuff" then as the pickin' continued I was like, " I should have had a garage sale and sold some of this good stuff ." Then I started really wishing I had dusted some of it off at least. Then I started feeling guilty and unappreciative of my stuff... I actually found myself helping these people and I was trying to choose who was deserving of certain items. I would hold up an item and tell them about how great it was and how much value it could have in the right hands. I became an auctioneer of free trash...a new low. Can you say CRAZY....it was an insane process. One by one as they had either gotten all they wanted or could carry they would disappear until only Spokesperson was left and he told me he was homeless and this is how he made a living. He would gather things and sell them at a flea market for a few bucks. My heart felt for him as he did not get first crack at the stuff . Here comes more crazy....ready....I go back in the house to find even better junk for Spokesperson. He left with a clock,and an Aroma scent diffuser thingy some fake fingernails and other assorted items. It made him smile to ride away with his "finds", and that made me smile. Exausted and completely covered in dirt and dust I went in for a shower. I felt good like had found good homes for my trash. I used to think I was a pretty normal person. No longer. I now see myself in a new light. A light that was hidden in the shadows of a huge pile of crap. L.