The Triangle

 

Just a stone’s throw from here, right around the corner, is an intersection of note. A smaller road intersects into the larger road on a curve. Because it’s on a curve, instead of standard T-bone, the smaller road diverges into two even smaller roads and looks like more like the letter “Y”. In the middle lives a small patch of land we call “The Triangle”. Roughly half the size of a tennis service box, The Triangle’s so small it scarcely should be called “land” at all.

I wouldn’t bring up this small, inconspicuous real estate but it turns out The Triangle is a destination, of sorts, for a wide variety of items, big and small, that people wish to, depending on your point of view, donate – or dump. Everything left on The Triangle is up for grabs, first come first serve. You need only see the item, put it in your car, and it’s yours.

It’s a nice idea. Why toss something someone else can still use? You might have outgrown it, but others might want it.

In a perfect world, in the early morning, someone will leave an item in The Triangle and, come sundown, someone else has taken the item. But, alas, this world is many things but one thing it’s not is perfect. Thus, what usually happens is that, under the cover of night, someone leaves an item, and, during the day, the item usually stays there, glanced at by passersby, completely unmolested. After a day or two the item is rained on. The item is now soggy, neglected, pitied. After another a week in the elements, someone, a resigned neighbor (or city worker?) comes and hauls the sadness away.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. This may be true somewhere in the world but in The Triangle, one man’s trash is another man’s trash. The item is not repurposed, not regifted. The item gets no second life. The item is trash, landfill, litter.

Residents who look directly at The Triangle have put a sign up: Smile, you’re on camera. But the sign (a bluff, I think?) has no effect. Thus, Beyond Reason has some hard truths for potential stuff-leavers: No one wants your thirty year-old old exercise equipment. They do not want your stationary bike or your rowing machine. They do not want your all-in-one-fitness station that you most certainly purchased from a late-night infomercial. Yes, we know the item was only “lightly used”. But this item was cheap when you bought it. Now it’s also old. We have a word for items like this – we call it “crap”.

As for furniture, no one wants your one random sectional from a couch, your single, deeply faded patio chair, or your banged up side table.

As for your random hardware… that ladder looks rickety, your gas cans look leaky, and your lawnmower hasn’t started in five years.

Finally, the absolutely most inexplicable item has to be that glass door and frame that lived in The Triangle for the better part of last summer. And fall. And some of winter. Why, man, why?

Arguably there’s a fine line between vintage and crap but frankly, you’re nowhere near the line. There is no such thing as vintage exercise equipment?! Just throw it away – yourself. If you really, truly think your item might have a second life, put it in your own front yard with a “free” sign on it. If you’re right, someone will take it. If you’re wrong, you can toss it – yourself. But please, man, please, leave The Triangle alone.