Karmic redistribution; gas prices actually helped someone.

[Atman]

After some years in hell (for us and him), our son just received his Bachelor of Science from a well-known Central Florida university. No dorm, we set him up in an off-campus apartment and bought all the stuff he'd need to "survive." Of course, little did we know that all he needed to survive was some beer and pizzas, but I digress.

I just got home after three days of hard-core packing and trying to unload all the accumulated stuff. We did the math...we bought an entire two-bedroom apt (he had a room mate) full of furniture from a local used furniture store for about $600. A nice couch with living room chairs, a coffee table, dinette set, entertainment center, queen-size bed w/headboard...the full set-up. We were going to bring it all home for him but when we did the math, it made no sense. The U-Haul rental combined with a 1300 mile drive would cost many times what we paid for "the stuff."

So anyway, we did the exit walk-through with the apartment people. The head of the clean up crew was there. We asked how we could dispose of the excess stuff. We were told they'd charge us a fee if we left anything in the apt. The clean-up woman, who barely spoke any English, asked about some of it. We told her to take anything she wanted. Kitchen equipment, chairs, coffee maker, dishes, dinner ware, micro, ANYTHING. The more you take, the less we have to transport.

She was literally in tears. Office manager called us...what did we do? Her head housekeeper was crying, overwhelmed. We gave her virtually an entire apartment full of furniture and kitchen accessories for free, all she had to do was take it out. She had peeps there in a couple of hours to take the stuff. Apparently, when most college student move out, they toss everything in the dumpsters. But this was all perfectly good stuff! We had called Habitat For Humanity to take the furniture, but the timing didn't work out.

We took this route because of gas prices. It made no sense to rent a U-Haul for $500, then pay $4+ for gas for 1300 miles -- for the van AND his car -- to bring $600 worth of furniture to New England. So Emma covered our cleaning fee in return for an entire apartment full of furniture and kitchen accessories. We went ahead and thoroughly cleaned the apartment anyway.

:)

Feels good to help people out. Of course, if I were a Republican, I would have demanded to see her papers first and then called a buddy from Waste Management who could make a profit off of it instead.

(edited for a typo)

[Motown_Johnny]

1. good for her, and for you

That was a nice story, thanks for sharing


K&R

[Loge23]

2. Good go!

Congrats to you and your son! Please send him back to FL - we can use more bright people down here!
It really makes you wonder how people are getting by these days. I too recently brought in some stuff that I didn't need to one of the warehouses I work for. The guys just scrambled for it all!
I'm happy to help also, but I'm not helping enough.
As for the beer and pizza: Is there anything else in college for food??! I'm thinking of going back to that diet myself!

[Mnemosyne]

3. Thank you, Atman.

:hug:

[Atman]

4. Self delete