This morning I decided it was time to start logging some of my stream of consciousness on the topics I find myself thinking about. And this blog was just sitting there, waiting to be put to use. So here goes!
Yesterday, Helen and I visited my 94 year old cousin Marge here on St. Simons Island. In the course of casual conversation, Helen mentioned that her iron is no longer working properly. She asked Marge if, by any chance, she had any irons she wasn't using that we might borrow. Marge brought out three irons she doesn't use and she also confessed that she no longer irons anything. All wash and wear now. She can't be bothered at her age! So, Helen gets to borrow one of the irons for the duration of our snowbird stay on St. Simons Island this winter.
Got me thinking this morning... What a waste! Those irons are kind of like "stranded assets". Still useful, but not being used. In their current state, they were liabilities... unused stuff... clutter... just taking up space in Marge's cupboard. So, one of the three will now be productively used. In fact, Helen's using it as I write this. This is the magic of freecycling / reusing. Liabilities in our community can become useful assets, contributing real value.
Got me thinking that this was sort of a rescue operation. (think rescue vs. recovery). This iron still has lots of life left in it, maybe 80 or 90% of its life. One of the other of Marge's irons was much closer to being useless trash! Well used and pretty much used up. Dealing with it might considered more of a recovery operation. Recovering and disposing of the corpse (metaphorically speaking).
No comments:
Post a Comment