The Standoff

In which I get new tires on my bike, and try to give stuff away. . . .

My husband picked up two new BMX bike tires the last time we were at Walmart, and he put them on my bike on this day. The stuffed critters loved playing in the boxes the tires came in. It was a real standoff on the bed! Moose and Tiger on the right; bear and anteater on the left. While they may look fierce, they are fast friends, and nobody means anybody any harm!

We did have one setback, when my husband (while putting the tube in the bike tire with a spoon, of all things) poked a hole in the tube and we thought we'd have to patch it. We got out the Slime patch kit and I eyed up the burring tool, the five patches, and the rubber cement with interest.

But he found a replacement tube in the shed (on a really crappy tire) and took it out; it was fine, held air. Shortly thereafter, my bike was back in business! I think the tires feel smoother on the road and I'm getting a little more roll for my buck - I bet it'll be faster than before but I'll let you know for sure after my first trip flying down Tow Hill without my brakes on!

In other news, over the weekend, my husband got up into the attic area to check the status of the interior roof, and we put the big air conditioner in the front closet at the top of the stairs for winter storage. When we brought that A/C up the steps this year in May, it was arduous. The knees just can't do it anymore. I ended up sort of sitting UNDER the air conditioner with my butt on the floor, bumping it up, step by step. When we got to the top, I said, and I quote: "WE ARE NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN."

And so we have decided that for the remainder of its days, the big air conditioner has to stay UPstairs with us. It's a split-level house built in the late 1970s, so pretty much EVERYTHING involves trips upanddownthestairs. All. Day. Long.

The front closet at the top of the stairs is where I store my backpacking gear. It is full up with STUFF in there already. So I had to take everything out of the closet before he could put the ladder in to go up through the hatch to the attic. Then I had to remove additional stuff from the closet to fit the A/C in, at the end.

Well, what came out of the closet? SIX, yes, SIX boxes of hangers. When I lived at my little house in town, up until 2004, I had pants of many colors that I wore to work. I mean, LOTS of pants, in rainbow hues. I stored them on pants hangers, on racks in the second bedroom upstairs.

When I moved out of the little house in town and into the bigger house in the country, I got rid of a bunch of stuff and I decided to store the pants that were left in Rubbermaid containers instead of on racks. Thus all of the extra hangers!

Now, the trick is to find somebody who WANTS hangers. Lots of hangers. Some individual hangers, in plastic, and metal, and wood. Some multi-hangers, you know, the nice, big, expensive ones. For pants and skirts.

Finding a happy home for the hangers is limited by these factors:
1. Our driveway is dangerous to get into and out of, so I don't prefer inviting strangers to simply come by and pick them up (which is typically the process for buy-nothing groups, etc.).
2. While we live NEAR a major university, we don't live in town anymore. We are, in fact, at least 20 minutes (or more, depending on which part of town you are from) to get out here. There is no public transit. You cannot walk it, most people cannot bicycle it, and there is NO BUS SERVICE anymore from town. This factor pretty much eliminates any sort of invitation to students to come and get what they want.
3. What I prefer is a place where I can simply drop them off. Preferably all six boxes at once!

So I started making phone calls:
1. Goodwill will accept plastic hangers, but not metal.
2. CentrePeace (a local charity that helps convicts) has no room for them.
3. St. Vincent De Paul thrift shop does not want them; they only want those hangers that twist at the top. "Thank you for thinking of us," the guy said.
4. I called Balfurd's dry cleaners. The Balfurd's lady was really nice. Had a major NYC accent. Where'd we get HER from? Called me "hon" and was quite sympathetic. She said if I have any hangers I GOT from them originally, of course, they'll take them back. Well, what do I say? I get on my high horse! I say, "I HAVE NEVER HAD DRY CLEANING DONE IN THIS TOWN!" And then we say polite good-byes, and I hang up. And then I open my next box of hangers and what do I see right on top? I just about split a gut laughing; oh, laughing like a complete LOON. (Then again, I am easily amused.) A BALFURD'S HANGER, complete with the label that says so! It also says, "Your dependable cleaner since 1927." I have made myself a LIAR!!! One. Just ONE Balfurd's hanger! (It felt like a very Austin Powers moment. Hey, at least it wasn't a Swedish-made penis enlarger! That's not my bag, baby!)
5. Plato's Closet (a local thrift shop) does not want them.
6. PSU's Career Services closet, where students may select (donated) clothing to use during job interviews, does not want them. They DO, however, still accept business clothing such as ladies' tops and skirts and dresses and men's suits and dress tops; they do NOT accept shoes.

That's where I'm at so far. I have given up on further investigation for now. I'm tired of talking to strangers on the phone who say No to me. The plastic hangers are bagged up and will go to Goodwill the next time we go past a donation box. The remaining FIVE boxes of hangers are now stored in our garage until I can figure something out. No, they are NOT going in the garbage!

In springtime, there is a weekend when our neighborhood has lots of yard sales and "free stuff" everywhere. I will probably give up and simply put the hangers (and plant pots - I have TONS of those) out in the yard on that day, with photos posted in our local Facebook neighbors' group. Somebody will make a real killing on hangers; I know they will! And it's a time when lots of people are driving around picking up free stuff and pulling in and out of strange driveways, so it just might work out.

Anyway, that's the tale of how we obtained new bike tires and tried to get rid of the hangers. For this photo of my little friends playing at having a standoff (come on, guys; we're all friends here!), we know that in the end it's just a great big game. So our soundtrack song is ABBA, with The Name of the Game. Here is also a lovely cover by Jessica Folker. The latter selection is from the 30th anniversary tribute concert in Sweden filmed over several days in August 2002; you can find the whole thing here.

P.S. You can see two books on the bed. To the left is an Iris Johansen. To the right is a real barn-burner by Robert Masello called Blood and Ice. I have about 150 pages to go in the latter one, and I JUST CANNOT PUT IT DOWN! I won't tell you more; maybe somebody will want to read it, but it is a mystery with murder and suspense. (We also visited the library this week and I picked back up the two J.D. Robbs I had to put back in the drop box because they were due; now I can finish the one I was about half-way through, hooray!)