Too Many Yellow Postcards

Yellow postcards now arrive about once every two weeks.  Twenty years ago, I'd get two each year to coincide with Thanksgiving and with Spring Cleaning.  The yellow postcards are from charitable organizations who offer to pick up your donation from your home.

More and more organizations are soliciting curb-side donations more frequently.  We're requested to place gently used clothing in boxes or bags, attach the bright yellow postcards, and place them at the curb in front of our homes.

But listen up -- I need my clothing!  That's what I wear.  And I continue to wear each item even after holes develop, or stains fail to disappear in the laundry.  And then, after an item gets so incredibly worn out and disgusting-looking that it's no longer fit to be worn in public, it becomes the uniform I don for home repairs, gardening and yard work.  And then, I might cut out whatever material is still fairly decent for use in crafts.

Charities are starting to request appliances via the curb-side pickup method.  As a tinkerer and handyman, I manage to keep my appliances functioning long after their warranties expire.

Currently, the handle on the dishwasher that releases the door latch is almost completely broken.  When it broke, I was worried that I'd never get it open again, and that most of our clean dishes and utensils would remain trapped inside.  But I managed to open it, and now I install a loop of sturdy string around the inner latch mechanism before I close it.  I simply pull up on the string to open it again.

The inner elements on the toaster fail to heat up unless I press the "Bagel" button.  I think it's stuck in some sort of Englishman's Toasting Mode, because, according to Sting, Englishman prefer their bread toasted only on one side.

The laptop power adapter stopped working.  I opened the module and discovered a bad solder connection.  I resoldered it, glued the module closed, and put it back into service.  Speaking of laptops, the screen went dead on the older laptop.  The inverter board that I bought for it also didn't work, but I can still use the laptop if I plug in a desktop monitor.

When the plastic handle broke off the lid of the crock pot, I bought a wooden cabinet knob from the hardware store and screwed it in.

These are just the most recent examples of the appliances I've been able to keep working.

So charities, You won't want my clothes or appliances.  So don't bother sending those yellow postcards to me.  All I'll do with them is hold them behind the cats' bottoms to keep their streams of piss inside the litterbox.