Clearing House

I filled my basket with things I have gathered over the years. A box of books left behind by some good parents, books on child development. I took them to a small mother's shop where the woman was happy to receive them saying they never get gifts like that. In my basket I also had a wind chime, a pail of old paint brushes, a frisbee with a smiley face, a bag of ribbons and bows along with a roll of wrapping paper, two boxes with Christmas lights that had never been used, and a small moth eaten picto-graph persian rug. The ribbons I left propped on top of a city sidewalk trash bin on a heavily trafficed street. The lights I gave to a store owner who was going to put them in his store window. The brushes, smiley, and chimes to the Liberian Artist up the road. And the rug that I found in a basement hanging on the back of a door over a decade ago. The rug was not pretty or remarkable but I couldn't toss it away then or now because I am a scavenger. For years as I moved from place to place I wanted to put it in the garbage but my conscious would not allow it. I rang the bell at the oriental rug shop at the end of the alley by my house and when the middle eastern accented man buzzed the secure door I told him I was moving and had this rug. His eyes lit up and was excited to see the tiny rug, he said it was a lot of money. Now, I have been wanting to throw it away for years so I asked him to do for me if it had to be done. The rug had a price but the look on his face to receive it as a gift was priceless.
One less thing.