Another man's treasure

We cleaned out the attic over our garage the other day. It was quite tedious. The previous owners of the house had kept every piece of scrap wood they ever cut. There were irregularly shaped pieces that were splintered or burned along the edges. There were long pieces of quarter-round that had been nearly shredded when they were removed from the walls. There was an old cardboard box filled with little triangular pieces cut from the ends of two-by-fours. Absurdly, the pieces were neatly arranged with the tops of the triangles pointing in the same direction.

With several hours' effort, we managed to stack the junk relatively neatly on our driveway to await the weekly garbage pick-up. We just could not believe anyone would keep such stuff. It was a fire hazard. It was a dust magnet. It was a waste of attic space. It was an attractive unfurnished rat condominium. It was dead weight on the garage ceiling. There was absolutely nothing that appeared to be remotely useful at all, and there was a lot of it.

The next day, a pickup truck rolled slowly by our house, turned around to make another pass, and finally backed to a halt at the end of our driveway. Two men got out. One of them perused the stacks of scrap wood and the other approached us humbly.

"Excuse me," he asked deferentially, "but were you planning to throw out that wood?"

"Why, yes, now that you mention it, we were, as a matter of fact."

The two men conferred quietly between themselves. Then: "We hate to impose, but we were wondering, since you were planning to throw out the wood anyway, if it might be possible for us to...to...?" The man looked down and shuffled his feet nervously.

"Take it?" I prompted.

He perked up. "Yes! Take it! We were hoping...er, wondering...whether we might just, you know, take the wood. Seeing as you were planning to throw it out anyway, of course," changing his tone to sound a bit more casual.

"Hmm," I replied, scratching my chin as if thinking it over.

"Uncle!" cried the other man suddenly, from down the driveway. "Look! There is a lovely antique cardboard box filled with little triangular pieces cut from the ends of two-by-fours. And they are all neatly arranged with the tops of the triangles pointing in the same direction!"

The older man drew in a sharp breath and his eyes welled with tears. He struggled to maintain his composure. In a voice trembling with hope, he asked once more: "Well...what do you think? Is it...is it possible we...we could..."

"Take it?" I prompted again.

Again he perked up. "Yes! Take it!" and suddenly, his shoulders slumped and he looked at his own feet, continuing in a more subdued tone, "That is, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"Hmm," I replied once more, once more scratching my chin as if thinking it over.

The two men shifted uneasily from foot to foot, gazing at me hopefully, their eyes reminiscent of the eyes of manga characters.

"Yeah, why not?" I said abruptly.

They were beside themselves with joy. Actually, they were beside each other with joy. In any case, they wasted no time in loading their truck with every useless scrap of wood in our driveway. They left in a festive mood, and we were also happy, because now we would not have to drag all that stuff to the curb on garbage day.