Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Picking Emergency

I got a call from my friend, Julie, last week that she had found a great wooden ladder on the side of the road and that it wouldn’t fit into her car.

She drives a mini-Cooper.

Yes, the same one that my builder, Paul, 
crashed into backing out of my driveway.



McDaniel was home sick that day and was with me in the kitchen when I got the call.

As I grabbed my keys to head out, McDaniel asked,

“Is this what you do all day?”

I wish!

I love picking emergencies!

People call me all the time after they have spotted something
on the side of the road that they think I might like. 



Or Carisa just tries to be funny.

I get “tipped off” to chairs mostly.

When you name your blog, 
“Chairs From the Curb” 
you have to expect that.

Although one time I do recall being at lunch with a friend and she mentioned a solid wood table she had spotted on a curb not far from where we were eating. 

I was driving a station wagon then and she had a van.

We piled the kids and their car seats (it was that long ago!) and ourselves into her van and she helped me load the very heavy, awkward, oak table into her vehicle as it started to rain and the kids started to scream because their mommies were shoving someone’s trash into their car.

It was our craft table for many years.

I easily found Julie’s car on the side of the road.



It kind of looked like it had fangs.


I pulled the VERY LONG, VERY SOLID wood ladder out of Julie’s car to put it into mine without taking out the garbage truck that decided to pull down the VERY NARROW road we were on.

It felt very much like I was in a cartoon 
or a Vaudville skit.

I could almost hear the musical accompaniment 
as the mile-long ladder teetered between 
being parallel and perpendicular 
to the street while I carried it.

As big as my Pilot is compared to Julie’s mini-Cooper, I cannot believe it took up every inch of interior space I had!




So now it sits in my garage until I deliver it to Julie because clearly, she can not swing by and haul it home herself.

And be street legal, anyway.

Do you have any harrowing picking emergency stories?

I use the word “harrowing” 
and “emergency” 
loosely, of course.


2 comments:

  1. So funny! My daughter and I love to scour the alleyways for freebies! I have picked up a wooden Adirondack couch, a door, and a desk this way. I also have a dresser waiting to be fixed up and loved. Thanks for the great story!

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  2. You are a good friend Karmen! My daughter and I can be found fairly often trying to maneuver something in a vehicle. Most of the times we are successful. There was the time that we bought my mom a decorative three wheeled bike planter for mother's day and no matter how many times we tried to fit that crazy thing in my car there was no way. People were staring but no one offered to help. We ended up in fits of laughter (of course) and a trip back in to the store to ask them to hold it so we could come back the next morning to get it with our truck. My daughter and her husband recently bought a new vehicle, not a car like mine, an SUV. Now we can load bigger and more exciting finds : )

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