Speaking of “found” stuff, here’s a post from last February and the pictures to finally go with it. I’m still debating on whether or not to put the answering machine message on the site. You’ll see what I mean:
“February 2nd, 2005
Men At Work
Today on my walk to work I stumbled across a garbage can with all of the trash strewn around the sidewalk. It smelled heavily of mustard and old picnic – and indeed, the bulk of the debris consisted of disposable plates and those notorious red keg cups. I thought I’d be the good Samaritan and pick up some of the larger pieces in the way, assuming that the trash belonged to no-one in particular and was instead a product of the nearby park.
However, I soon found out that this was actually flotsam and jetsam from a personal residence. Nearly shitting myself, I had to squeeze my buns together when I found these huge 17×11 photographs of a handsome Christian youth counselor printed out on a computer. My personal favorites from this lot include a shot of him being dowsed with silly string, wearing a “life is tough, but God is tougher” t-shirt, one where you can not help but deduce that he is teaching kids the cabbage patch, a really home-sweet-home one of him sleeping with what I assume is his daughter laying on a couch with her feet in his face, gently pushing his grandmother on the swings with his shirt off, and finally, jumping off a diving board like one of those mugs with the dramatic picture of like horses fording a river with just the word “Courage” or “Endurance” to frame it.
So naturally, this is hand-downs one of my best finds on the old Garrett Scavanger Scale. But it only gets better.
In a shoebox I found a collection of old cassette tapes of California Christian metal (issues I and II) and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. To top it all of off, I will finally get to hear none other than Lionel Richie, who I assume not even his famous Paris Hilton befriending daughter still bothers to listen to.
There was also a small pouch filled with this anonymous gentleman’s name tags, and from the likes of it, they’re for one of those Applebee’s shit joints parodied in Office Space (you know the kind where they make you wear “flare”.) This place probably had a more exaggerated sense of flashiness because I think it was called “Chi-Chi’s”.
By this point I was still not overly suspicious, but when I finally played back all the messages from the answering machine that he had thrown out, a mystery dropped itself squarely onto my lap.
The only message of any relevance was left by a rather distraught woman who had this to say:
“C – please call me before you go because if I know that you are gone without giving me one last chance to explain myself I may just throw myself in front of a car or something.”
”
Here are the pictures:
hey man, don’t sleep on Chi-Chi’s. It was a sit-down mexican chain that featured the best damn fried ice-cream on either side of the Rio Grande. trust me, it was worth the diarrhea.
[...] nd gossip and intense emotions – and I presume it was never meant to be heard in public. 2.Life Is Tough, God is Tougher: A whole slew of photos (of a youth pa [...]