I just moved out of a house on Caroline Street. But before leaving, I had the traditional yard sale. One of my offerings was an old corduroy blazer with leather patches on the elbows, part of my traditional uniform when I was in graduate school. One of my "shoppers" was a homeless man I had seen around the neighborhood.
"How much do you want for that jacket?" he asked.
"How about ten dollars," I responded.
"Sure." I have never been known for my negotiating skills.
But as he dug around in his pockets, it became evident that he didn't have five dollars.
"Why don't you just take the coat," I told him. Why not? I probably wasn't going to be able to sell it anyway.
"God bless you, sir," he said. "You're helping a homeless person."
Once the yard sale was out of the way, we brought in the cleaners and dutifully locked up the house. The new tenants were scheduled to move in at the end of the month. But only a few days later, I got a call from my former neighbors.
"Who are these loud, obnoxious drunks who have moved in next door?"
Now I know the people who are scheduled to move into that house. While they've been known to have a beer or two, they certainly aren't loud and obnoxious. So I went over to take a look. I found a nest of dirtbags who had moved in and who were systematically trashing the house. The cops only caught one, but he was outraged when they hauled him off to jail.
Among the piles of garbage and debris the dirtbags left behind we found— you guessed it— the corduroy blazer.