Laundryroom Swapmeet

Item:

A poster advertising a Master of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design.

Why It’s Here:

Academia, in its ongoing struggle for relevance, has resorted to guerilla marketing, planting striking three-by-four posterboard writeups in laundry rooms across the nation.

Probable Recipient:

A red-haired young firebrand named Howard Roark. And now you know the rest of the story.

I took a philosophy class in college:

It was an elective credit whim—I figured, what the hell, so long as I’m always running my mouth off I might as well shore up the foundation a bit.

The philosophy professor—and you could tell he was a philosophy professor because he dressed in a calculatedly casual and non-professorial manner, and because he had a bunch of philosophy books on display bearing his name—asked all of us, on the first day of class, who our favorite contemporary philosophers were. In most classes, this would qualify as an ice-breaker, but in that class it was more of a challenge.

And some poor son of a bitch said, “Ayn Rand“. And this professor just laughed; and it was a dark, cruel, unfriendly laugh, the sort of thing that has more to do with naked contempt than humor or mirth or any flavor of human kindness.

Item:

A bamboo plant in a small glass rectangular vase.

Why It’s Here:

Pardon some philosophizing, but bamboo makes me all zen and thoughtful:

The “why it’s here” portion of these writeups is a curious beast.  While those words can be seen as a simple prompt for explanation—how did this thing arrive at this location?—there is a more charged, and in many cases more likely meaning:

“What is wrong with this?”

For something to have arrived at this table, it stands to reason that someone in the building held the thing in their hands and thought, “I do not want this.”  The act of putting something into the swapmeet is unavoidably also the act of rejection.

And yet, the object so rejected is considered to have value.  Perhaps only theoretical value, true—by putting a thing on the table, the prior owner is not necessarily saying “someone will want this”; they may only be saying “someone might want this”, with an explict or tacit coda:  “…though god knows why they would.”

And so the question of “why it’s here” acts as a sort of dark, unloving yin to the “probable recipient” yang, complementary meditations on the desirable and the undesirable.  Partners in an acknowledgement of the possibility of an object being simultaneously valueless and valuable, disposable and utile, trash and treasure.

The laundryroom swapmeet, then becomes a sort of nexus of ownership, a still, quiet eye in the existential storm.  A wormhole, if you will, through which possessions may travel from illfitting owners to those who can better love them.

So why is this bamboo plant here?  It is here because this is where it was put.  It is here because this is where things go.  It is here because it must stop here, however briefly, if it is to make the journey from the place Where It Was to the place Where It Should Be.

And it is here because the fucking thing makes anyone who looks at it go into a zen trance and go on for paragraphs at a time.  It’s goddam voodoo, man!  Stay away!

Probable Recipient:

A yuppie.  Yuppies love bamboo.  I read it in a magazine. 

And now, your moment of zen:

[sound of Josh being sued into paste by The Daily Show’s law team]

Item:

A shiny metal dishrack, with a transluscent plastic something-holder attachment. 

Why It’s Here:

Previous owner is the daughter—and now heiress to the fortune—of the most powerful disposable dishware magnate in the land, the late Mr. Frederick Templeton Chinette.

Probable Recipient:

Someone looking for an innovative way to slice 10-pound blocks of cheese. 

Dish racks are not humorous:

And so I don’t think I can really be blamed here.  Seriously, can you think of a good joke involving a dishrack?  A big-budget comedy?  A bumper sticker?  No.  You can’t.  Because dish racks aren’t funny.

Item:

An unmatched ceramic mug and a plate, in an orange box.

Why It’s Here:

To frighten and confuse!

It’s worth noting that the orange box originally contained ski-boots. Not that you’d be able to tell, from where you’re sitting—the text in the photo isn’t readable without a pair of patented Ultra-Vision Goggles—but take my word for it. Dinnerware in an orange ski-boot box. Lovecraftian, this thing.

Probable Recipient:

Someone who keeps leaving their ski-boots sitting out. You know who you are.

New patented Ultra-Vision Goggles:

They’re the patentedest!

Item:

A broken Stella Artois glass in a big cardboard box.

Why It’s Here:

What?  What do you—are you saying that, that—

Seriously, isn’t this the trashcan?  It looks just like the trashcan.  What with the washers and dryers and the mailboxes and the folding table and the being-an-entire-goddam-room.

And get off my lawn!

Probable Recipient:

Someone with some crazy glue and a lot of free time.

Self-restraint:

Is the only thing standing between you and the dozen or so terrible jokes I could make about how that glass is not looking so stella, &c.

Item:

A transluscent blue lamp shaped like a dolphin.

Why It’s Here:

Previous owner felt it was too dildonic. 

Probable Recipient:

Someone who’s looking to make a statement.  Specifically, this statement:  “I have a lamp that looks like a glowing blue dolphin dildo.” 

Word of the day:

Teledildonics!

Item:

A smallish, squishy hot-pink pillow.

Why It’s Here:

Because the previous owner couldn’t stand how it felt.

Trust me.  You may think that I just wander down into the laundry room and take pictures of this crap from a safe distance, but if you do then you think wrongly.  I have to frame these shots.  I have to make a clear space on a often-crowded table.  I have to manipulate these objects with my bare hands.  And when I say this thing is kind of gross and squishy, I mean it.  Oh lord do I mean it.

Probable Recipient:

Hell’s Couch. 

I mean, the way this pillow felt:

So gross.  So very wrong. 

<shudder>

Item:

A shower-ready clock radio, with round mirror.

Why It’s Here:

Remember that person who gave up on showers?  No showers, no shower radio.  QED.

Probable Recipient:

Someone who falls asleep in the shower.  Who plans on it, even.  Or di