One man's crap is another man's...

She walks by an elliptical trainer, facing the jungle gym, rain beading up on the grips, dripping from the saddle. It looked like a puppy tied up outside a store, patiently waiting for an owner to return. Maybe it belonged to a soccer mom, who, sitting on the bench watching her kids running around screaming at the top of their lungs. Maybe the woman felt fat and lazy but the idea of running around with the kids seemed too childish and ridiculous so why not bring out the old elliptical to get some exercise in while the children played…

She makes her way through an alleyway and passes by forty Globe and Mail newspaper boxes lined up in perfect rows. She spends the rest of her walk to work trying to figure out whether they’d been retired permanently or just been switched out for newly designed ones. What a waste…

Later that day, she spots a giant screen TV as she made her way home. Too bad she didn’t have that elliptical from earlier. That way she could set up like that scene from Juno and get all her TV watching in while exercising in a low-impact sort of way. She also wouldn’t mess up her eyesight or her back by trying to lean over mid-workout to make out the faces on her favourite tv shows. Maybe not…

She wonders what the warm weather will bring for the back alleys of Vancouver. What other treasures await and how much she can decorate the backyard with useless crap arranged into bedroom and kitchen sets before her landlord starts to complain…