PAI on Freecycle

I hit the delete key viciously yet again today, and decided to share with you why I did.

I belong to a wonderful organization called Freecycle. You may have recently seen a blurb on CNN about it. Freecycle offers its members in dozens of countries the opportunity to pass on things that one no longer needs, but that might have useful life left in them. This saves a lot of space in landfills, and goes along well with my feeling of self-satisfaction in my half-assed attempt to green up my life. The premise is that you join your local county's Yahoo group, and post things you no longer need, known as offers, where your general location is, and people respond directly to you to say they would like this, and can pick it up at XXX time and day. You then indicated the item is PPU...Pending Pick Up, so that others realize that it's gone. Seems pretty simple, no?

But trust the general public, with its incredible sense of entitlement, to torque things up. When WILL you people realize that I'm the only one who is entitled to anything?!? The Freecycle national rules very clearly state that if you need something, you may post a "Wanted" but only in very limited numbers, and not for high-ticket items like DVD players or diamond rings. The local list also has a rule that your first post must be an offer. Unfortunately, the list mom is apparently both incapable of monitoring the list, or turning it over to people willing to actually run it. It finally got to the point where several of us had tried to reach her for weeks, no new members had been approved, and finally the state level stepped in and created some new moderators. Then :::POOF::: the list owner reappears, removes all the moderators, and immediately vanishes again. Everytime this occurs her husband has some life-threatening situation - she says. Maybe, maybe not, but if you have that much on your plate, let someone who can do so run things.

The upshot of this is the Wanteds are insanely out of control. I have, and I kid you not, seen people posting to have entire apartments furnished...and specifying oak entertainment units with glass doors, if you please!..., riding lawn mowers, large TV sets, and oh, yes, please throw in the aforementioned DVD player for their pre-teen who needs it. I gnash my teeth every time I read one of these, and a few of us malcontents on the list, known as the Coven (DH is an honorary wizard), share snarky off-list comments about the idiots and their unstinting greed.

Why do I stay? I can get rid of things I no longer need to people who are grateful for them. Your Goddess basks in gratitude, of course. Also I occasionally score something good, like a lovely Lladro I got because I realized what the Spanish Nun statue probably was, and yes, I'm still patting my own back, wazzittoyou?

I hit the delete button so hard today because some buffoon with her hand always out had the nerve to ask for deck furniture and a charcoal grill. I swear on my mother's grave. Okay, she isn't dead, but you get the idea.

So my email to the Coven? "Gee, do you think we can throw in a package of Tbones and a sun awning for her?" Amazing how being utterly catty helps my temper. :-)