P.S. More freebies: Living in Old New England means you occasionally get to make the run to the Town Dump (euphemistically known now as the 'Transfer Station'), where they have a Swap Barn for leaving stuff that you don't want but someone else might. I brought the recycling in this week, so I browsed, and there I found a 1940s glass refrigerator dish, a vintage enamelware cooking pot (a good size for corn), hardcover copy of Bowling Alone, a book by Jung (I forget which), and a decent paperback of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

I wish it had been Jitterbug Perfume, but in the Freeconomy you don't choose things, you let things choose you.

I've been giving stuff away instead. It makes me feel good to see empty space open up in my small apartment where there wasn't any before.

A lovely metaphor as well, mb.

Someone just gave me a 40" CRT television that weighs about 200 lbs. TV becomes a whole new experience when people's heads are larger than life size.

Someone gave me an old, treacle-slow, yet working laptop, which for me has meant the difference between being stuck at home working every day and being able to go out to the library, visit friends, go on train journeys, etc.

Is it to early in the thread to answer "sex"?

I got a free TV from a friend and all around great guy with more money than anyone, strictly speaking, needs. (He already had two TVs in a 1 BR apt.)

I got a wicker set for my sun porch. Five chairs and an ottoman. All in great shape, just needed a spritz of white spray paint.

50 pounds of skateboard wheels and a best friend

My apartment building is full of students and they are great about leaving things they don't want. I got a bag of Dove chocolates and a box of salt this week. I left two sample Mach 3 razors I'd gotten at the store.

That couch is beautiful!

I find more than is given to me, for instance: I work in Tribecca in NYC and around here live many people... with more money than anyone, strictly speaking, needs... one of them deposited on the sidewalk a beautiful antique dresser, walnut, classic lines, just lovely and solid. It had a broken back! leg, that someone had repaired solidly with a metal brace, back leg, you cannot see it, dammit. Otherwise perfect, I ran and got a dolly from work, dragged it to the office, kept it in the office for two or three months (we encourage this kind of behavior around here, if only so whenever someone came into the office we could point to it and say "can you believe someone threw that out?") and then moved it into my new apartment. Find of a lifetime. If I had a pickup truck I would a lifetime of stuff rescued from the streets and probably a tidy little second income from Craigslist. Anyone know where I could get a cheap pickup truck and a cheap little warehouse?

NH is full of $500 pickups, good enough for junk runs. Come on up!

As soon as I figure out how to make a living away from New York and the kid is off to college you can bet your ass I'm going to be in New Hampshire and the first six coffee brandies are on me.

On the Monday after Father's Day I snagged a large Weber charcoal grill that someone had put out with the trash. The obvious backstory is that someone got a new grill for Father's Day.

Miko, trash days in Boston were the best! I got lots of free furniture that way when I lived there. Even got up early to beat the other trash-pickers.

I have a very similar story to unknowncommand's above.

Last December I answered a 'free' listing on Denver CL for an ancient-but-bombproof MTB wheelset. I hadn't been on craigslist for about six months due to some weird experiences... I mean really, I collected not one but *two* creepy email stalkers simply by getting rid of some junk the last time I moved.

... but I really needed these wheels for my city/winter bike project, plus I'm lazy and the poster lived within a block of me.

Well the wheels were even better than advertised, and not only that, we discovered we're both originally from D.C. and have a ton of parallel experience in the bike industry. The day I went over to pick up the wheels, we ended up talking for over three hours. Over time, this morphed into a cool riding buddy partnership, which has now morphed into my Best. Roommate. Ever.

craigslist = the biggest crapshoot on the internet.

grey grippy socks from the hospital... two pairs... I'm rather fond of them

When I bought my Canon D60 dSLR on eBay it came with a case and a Tamron 28-300 mm lens, although the listing didn't mention them. The lens is a bit worse for wear, but it works.

A whipit on my birthday, from a stranger who didn't know it was my birthday, but apparently just felt like giving someone a whipit.

Oh, we got these for free:

≡ Click to see image ≡

I got a car once, and it actually ran. It ran all the way from Pa. to Co. to Ut. to Ca.
Thanks Wil, you were a terrible BF, but a good man.

There's a road song in there somewhere, goml.

Miko: Many people have told me to write my life story or that my life could be a TV movie of the week, or that I should do stand-up comedy (or a road song) but no one ever believes the stories I tell. Unfortunately, I 'm just not that creative and my stories are (sadly) real.

I got a dresser from the side of the road one night after closing my local bar.
I was given a God-ugly sofa (exactly like the one on "Roseann") from a friend of a friend when I left my abusive, alcoholic husband with two small boys in tow. It was comfy, though.

People tend to give me a lot of free crap. They are taking advantage of my mental illness! Semi-seriously! I am a horrible pack-rat but not really quite into the full blown hoarding disease realm. From where I am sitting I can see the following free crap: fake Les Paul guitar, G-4 tower, three huge old CRT monitors, two reel-to-reel tape machines (one four track, one eight track), two crappy IBM computers, three filing cabinets, a Hammond M-3 organ, a sixteen mm film editing table for god's sake, and a shopping cart. And a printer. And three air conditioners. I'm screwed. The best things people have given me are a bunch of artwork done by various friends and neighbors, yeah, that's the coolest.
Once many years ago my parents put a dresser out on the street in front of their house with a sign on it: "free". After a full day, they replaced the sign: "for sale". Gone in less than an hour.
And I want to hear that road song, too.

Is that your place, Meeks? Or just where the couch used to live? Lovely sunlight.

Unfortunately, it's where the couch used to live. But there's nice sunlight in my place, too.