I was in New Orleans for Halloween about 12 years ago. Tripping on acid like a madman. I mean, lunging around the French Quarter, laughing my ass off at everything I saw. The costumes were out of this world, and amidst all the nuttiness I fell right into place.

At some point, I wandered into Jean Lafitte's, one of my all-time favorite bars. There was a group in the back gathered around a piano player. Everyone was singing and laughing, and I sat back and giggled incessantly at how wonderful and beautiful everyone seemed.

I went into the bathroom, grabbed a stall, and sat down, still laughing, watching the tile and walls shift and move. I looked over for some TP, saw it was out, and instead grabbed a Spyderco knife, just as if it had been left for me.

I still have that knife, and wonder every so often who left it, and what it had been used for.

One of the armchairs in my living room. It was on the curb in front of someone's house with a broken leg- I brought it home and fixed the leg, and a few years later had it reupholstered. I still love that chair.

When Kitty was living on our front porch we made the decision to have him fixed and move him into the house while we were out for an evening walk. I said "we'll need to pick up a cat carrier tomorrow". A few minutes later we turned off into an ally and there sat a cat carrier on top of a garbage can.

Also, we have our garage art. Paintings we have found in the garbage that we hang in the garage.

I have boxes of little stuff I find on walks. Change, trading cards, children's jeweler, bits of Lego, busted watches, a shocking number of action figure legs and a few damaged photos. I plan to do a photo essay of them sometime.

The one time in all of college when I went to the second floor of the fitness center, I noticed a box that had been marked "lost and found" but now read "free!". Inside, I found a black youth-XL hoodie, in perfect condition, with an amazing graphic of Colette from a high school's production of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical version of Les Miserables.

Never had I found a sweatshirt that fit as well, to the point of never even considering buying one; I took it home, washed it, and wore it for over a year all over the world. In the Washington, DC Metro, I was stopped twice by hipster-looking folks asking me where I bought it...ah, the joy of found objects! My mom and my friends began to hate it because I wore it so much; I even earned the moniker "Frugal McDougal" and was accused of having found all my clothes in boxes labeled "free."

Ze photo (please ignore the fauxhawk bouffant, glazed-over eyes, and cheeseball grin...it was hot and we'd had a LOT of wine...):

≡ Click to see image ≡

I was walking home from work one day and found a black bowling ball with a 6-foot heavy metal chain bolted to it, and a pair of handcuffs on the other end of the chain. I figured I'd go to a bachelor party one day, so I took it home. The MrsMoonPie, bless her, thought it was a fine thing to have, too. I did end up using it a year or so later, then ditched it in a planter box somewhere in Dupont Circle. Wonder where it is now?

I found the right half of a jawbone from some carniverous animal in a field last year - I think it's a fox jaw or a coyote jaw, but it might be a dog. I hope it's not a dog.

I found a rhinestone pin on a walking path. The pin spelled out L O V E.

I've got a shadowbox of all the little weird junk I find in the gutter, and another of the weird, broken junk I found in the ditch of my car accident.

Hm... let's see. At the moment, we have six chairs, two desks, two small tables, three footstools, a bookcase, an amazing workbench (it was apparently some counter in a bank or something... solid, polished wood that weighs a TON; we carried it for about 10 blocks, taking a rest every block - that sucker is heavy), and an iron. Off the top of my head. We had a great old wrought iron headboard for a single bed, but returned it to whence it came (the street) once we didn't have a room for a single bed anymore. I love street finds!

Of course most of this stuff needed fixing up. Our really nice old fashioned desk was apparently left out in the rain for a few years, so the top was completely destroyed. We took it off, stripped the horrible paint from the rest of it, stained it a nice dark acid green, varnished it, and put a nice wooden slab on top, and now people compliment us on it all the time.

One time we found several great wood and canvas balcony chairs set out by a dumpster, and the canvas just needed a little mending, and we were all like, "damn! it's amazing what people just throw away!" We took them home, fixed them and used them for years. But... not long afterwards, we figured out that they belonged to a nearby cafe, and that they had a special little room where they put chairs that needed fixing... the room was right by the dumpster... *cough*. Ahem. Ever since then, when we see something outside that we'd like to steal, we say, ""damn! it's amazing what people just throw away!" But we don't steal it! it's only a joke. :)

ooh, ooh! Also, a couple of funny, but sad, but funny stories about found(ish) stuff:

1) a friend of ours is a props manager for films, and recently his truck was broken into... and one of the things taken was a suitcase. Full of money. Fake money. Heh. Gawd, I would have loved to have seen that play out.

2) The last film my husband worked on had the principles throwing gold bars off the side of a cliff to the ravine below (where the heroes hoped to later recover it). During the filming, one of the "gold bars" became stuck in a bush halfway up the side of the cliff. Eventually, that gold bar is going to drop, and somebody will find it and be all happy, then sad. Then they are going to wonder what asshole made a fake gold bar and left it sitting there for someone to find.