Saturday, November 17, 2007




Nails. Roofing nails. Sheetrock nails.

With and without heads. With funny little grooves.

Short, long, featherweight, thunky.

I don't need any of these nails which live

in my basement. I have on my desk a small

compartmentalized plastic box of picture-hanging nails

which I purchased at Lowe's, which I use. Probably

enough in that box to last my lifetime. But the thousands

of nails in my basement sit in their rumpled paper bags

or their Folgers cans, doing nothing. I don't want them.

Today I brought my neighbor a glass punch cup

filled with many sizes of nails. She told me that she

needed one the other day, and had none. So now, she, too,

has a lifetime supply. I don't do garage sales. I don't

post on Craig's list. Do you want some nails?

3 comments:

  1. oh honey. craig's list can be your best friend when you have useful-to-others stuff.
    offer it up free and someone will fetch it in a jiffy. i had strangers come and haul away the entire rickety fence, others dig up and haul patio brick, a lovely generation something mega-tattooed woman come and meticulously remove every neatly piled scrap of sod left over from laying the yard. and even the leftovers from my big sheetrock redo were claimed by a woman wanting to redo the kitchen backsplash and the cut-ups were just fine thank you. you'd be surprised how satisying it can be without the added steps of riddence-good without hauling to the dump, and how happy you make the lucky to receive.
    you also meet interesting people in a moment of time that make for good lessons on the ways of the world, and find gratitude for what you have, and are.
    just sayin'...cz

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  2. Oh thank you cz. You are right.

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  3. mine was obviously not edited for grammar, now that i see it in daylight. sorry, dear LM (language mavin)...

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