Proof That Times Have Changed

We all know that things aren't the same as they always have been.  The records I used to listen to as a child have never been seen by the we ones.  They'll never know the pleasure of untangling telephone cords, either.  And a life without cable television?  What an odd thought.

But every once in awhile, something else strikes you to let you know that time really has moved on without your realization.  Last month, I cleaned out the office of everything.  That included the entertainment center we'd replaced shortly after we moved into our house.  It had become the receptacle of papers that didn't have a home and other items.  Until I had cleared it out, I couldn't get rid of it, and that took a good long time.

Finally, I was ready for the entertainment center to find a new home.  I called our local church resale shop to ask when they could come pick it up.  After confirming with me that this was something meant to hold a tube television, they kindly explained that they didn't take these items anymore.

Oh.  Wait, I couldn't even donate this to charity?

I asked friends if anyone wanted it or if they knew anyone who did.  There was no response.  When my mom saw it, she said it was interesting timing, as just that week, four of her friends at bridge had asked her about wanting an entertainment center.  Even the old biddies at bridge were getting rid of theirs.

Fortunately, there's always the fallback.  In our neighborhood, there are scavengers.  You put something out at night before garbage day, and it disappears into the loaded down, decrepit pickup trucks that patrol our area on the lookout for anything they can use.  They will take old toilets, broken water heaters, carpeting, grills, children's toys, anything.

So we put out the entertainment center the night before garbage day.  My husband even made a little sign indicating that it was free (including the gratis if the scavengers were only Spanish speaking and couldn't figure out that the piece of furniture by the curb was available for the taking).

The next morning, it was still there.  That's ok, the scavengers come by on garbage day, too.  We saw more than one truck slow down to look at the entertainment center before speeding up in rejection.  And so it sat.  My husband was sure that someone would take it, that it would find a new home.  I finally made him drag it into our garage after a few days.  I'm not going to be the neighbor with an eyesore sitting there.

And now it lives in my garage until we can disassemble it to place parts small enough to fit into our garbage bin out on garbage day.  An era has passed, and I'm now acknowledging it.  No one uses entertainment centers like this anymore.  The day of the tube television has gone.

Do you know anyone who might want a perfectly good entertainment center?  Gratis?