Maybe Poor People Will Want It

As I empty a bag and look over the donations in it I think, “Geezus why; not even I would willingly take any of this! If I didn’t work here taking donations, I’d throw it all in the garbage!" Used undergarments and chipped ceramic dishes? Broken glass? Old VHS **** cassettes accompanied with accoutrements? Flip-flops with the black dents of footprints in them and bottoms beyond repair Sweat-stained pillowcases, used cosmetics, brushes full of dead hair? Puzzles missing just five pieces? Why were these even brought here?!! Many donors assure me as they hand me closed garbage bags That maybe the stuff dumped inside will be a blessing to those who are poor The fine excessories they haphazardly stuffed in a bag to make room for more without even seeming to have looked at any of it themselves “Maybe poor people will want it,” their looks tell me at the door But they seem to seek in that statement assurance from me that, indeed, their garbage has value to be credited to them, even if just once more. But sometimes the contents truly are quite nice And that is always a welcome surprise So I have learned to smile and take the good with the bad And try not to get cynical of people when they hand to me a closed bag, the contents unknown If I unload it to find dried up paint Or computer books out-of-date Or survival kits for Y2K I think to myself, “No, a poor person wouldn’t want it in a million years!” But I dare not say it out loud For if I despair such donations now The occasional valuables may never appear. But really?!! They can’t be serious! Who would donate this trash and think it’s really a gift?!! Then I point to a photo on the bulletin board across the donation center, a photo that captured a couple at a country club function “They would!” I yell, then laugh to myself as though I just had the privilege of punching them. You see, I recently received several trash bags of unwashed old clothes Interspersed with a bunch of half-used hotel soaps And shoe inserts, sweat-stained visors, snagged nylons And of course – used thongs I mean, the thongs have been up someone’s butt!! Lord love a duck! Get a grip! Poor people don’t want this; not one bit! How out-of-touch would one have to become To think poor people will want them, then so much As a hundred dollars from their next tax bill deduct? Then I looked in the final bag of this fine gift and found in it a stray photo of the donors I could tell from the gala-pose expressions that they were the prior owners. So I hung their picture as a reminder and direction for blame to which I can point. The next time I get stuff I don’t even want to touch, and mutter, “Who would donate this?!!” at least now I can look to them and exclaim with facetious joy, “They would!! Definitely them!! At last I have an answer to this recurring question! It does me good to have faces to go with these donations The bulletin board features several of these photos, and I don’t actually hate them. If my co-worker got any donated darts, he’d probably throw them full-force at these photos as though trying to smite them But I’m content to just point my finger at them and indict some real person Although knowing they are just a generic image Of all those faceless jerks giving their useless garbage to equally faceless poor people thinking they’ll want it. These faces I see there humanize these strangers, and if I ever met them I’d sincerely smile and thank them for the daily amusement I get on their account Even though that’s probably not what they meant to give out.