Laundryroom Swapmeet

Item:

A small grey-and-white-striped purse with pink piping and a metal chain strap.

Why It’s Here:

It heard about the wallet gathering and rushed down to see if it was still going on. 

Probable Recipient:

A girly zebra on the hunt for accessories.  I bet there’s zebras up on 5.

The problem with zebras:

You can’t show ‘em on TV.  It’s those stripes.  High-contrast parallel stripes are just murder—interference patterns all over the place.  Moire patterns, I’m saying.

Those nature shows?  The ones that have zebras on them?  Computer graphics.  Special effects using carefully-designed fakes.  Zebra sequences have long been at the bleeding edge of video post-production technology.  At technical conferences, when discussing new effects-production technologies, skeptical video engineers will often say, “sure, the demo looked good, but will it zebra?“  

Item:

Five wallets, of varying size, shape, and color.

Why It’s Here:

More importantly, what happened before they showed up? Someone managed to amass wallets. Compulsive shopper? Uninventive gifts over a stretch of years ? Literally too much cash? And then, bam—to the swapmeet with you! 

Probable Recipient:

The wallet inspector. 

Pink faux-snake skin:

It’s like it’s crying out to the world: “I am fake! I am real!” Make up your goddam mind, you waffling textile!

Item:

A little blue box, with an oval mirror and some grabber-widgets inside.

Why It’s Here:

I’m not sure.  What is this thing?  Is this some sort of old-fashioned compact?  Those little blue bumps—it seems like you could trap things between them, but I don’t know what.

I’m guessing the previous owner couldn’t figure out what the hell it was good for either. 

Probable Recipient:

A Wizard of the Box School, knowledgable in the invocation and deployment of tiny, intricate boxes.  Or someone looking for some fixer-upper luggage for their Barbie.

Oval or ovular:

I don’t know which I like more.  I mean, oval is a good word, descriptive, round in the mouth, yes; but ovular sounds so dirty.

Holy crapcakes!  This is like a whole swapmeet in a bag!  It’s ridiculous!  My freakin’ cup floweth over, here!

You can’t really tell from the photo, here, but there’s better than a dozen distinct items in that bag.  It’s a bounty!  A boon!  If there was a long-lost Great Aunt Swapmeet, and she died?  This is what she’d leave me.

Ridiculous!

Item:

A white rigid-mesh bag sitting inside of a blue plastic storage tub.  The tub has no lid.

Why It’s Here:

Putting things inside of other things is so 2005.  The new thing is laying everything on the ground in a thin layer.  Containers are out out out, baby.

Note: if you redecorate your living space according to the aforementioned new hotness, please send pictures.

Probable Recipient:

Some poor fashion victim who owns more than one floor-layer of stuff.  How embarassing!

What this made me wish for:

Another, smaller blue plastic tub inside the white bag.  And another miniature white bag inside of that.  And so on.

Another Who’s Who In The Laundry Room celebrity!  This fella likes to hang out in the northwest corner of the room, facing, as you can see, the wall. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr. Baby Stroller.

What’s disconcerting here is that Mr. Baby Stroller is pretty consistenly here.  Is he merely being stored?  Do some parents in the building live on a different floor and prefer not to navigate the elevator?  No, that’s ridiculous.

Perhaps the child for whom this stroller had been daily transport has since graduated to parambulation?

Perhaps something more sinister has occurred?

Best not to think about it.  It’s not clear, regardless, that the stroller either is or is not part of the swapmeet.  I’d speculate that such a distinction is entirely functional: the swapmeet is defined precisely as those things that are taken after being left in the laundry room.  Should one of the washing machines turn up missing, voila: the swapmeet has expanded to home appliances.

I’ll keep an eye on this guy and see what happens.

There are days when the table is full—my swapmeet overfloweth, &c—and there are days when it is less so.  Pictured above: an instance of the latter case.

An empty table is a clean slate, but also a threat: what if nothing else ever shows up?  What if the swapmeet has closed?  What if people start using the table for folding their clothes?  Worrisome thoughts.  Worrisome.

But the table never stays empty.  And on this day, the table didn’t even truly empty itself—that fondue pot remains, holding ground as a one-man loser pile.  I am beginning to feel bad, in fact: I had some harsh words for the fondue pot back when it debuted, but in reality I am extremely fond (ha!) of melted cheese.  There must be others like me.  There must be a home for this fondue pot.

Item:

A pair of glasses, with a hard glasses case.

Why It’s Here:

Laser eye surgery is increasingly affordable, and many health plans offer generous coverage.  Or maybe someone started eating their carrots.

Probable Recipient:

Someone with a hobbyist interest in optics.  I look forward to seeing these return a couple weeks later as part of a clumsily-constructed 1.3x homemade microscope. 

Photographic composition:

Surprisingly good for this shot.  I mean, these are ugly, poorly lit photos in general—I won’t deny it—but something about this one speaks to me of the possibility of one day achieving a small sense of photographic mediocrity.

I dare to dream.