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July 20, 2009 |
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Do You Like My Stuff?
FOUND by Andrew Hammond Kendall
in Suburban Texas
Found on the ground or in a trashcan at the carwash. It made me happy. Does it make you happy? Yes or no?
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You Know What it... March 23, 2003 |
Panhandlers For... August 30, 2006 |
A Very Good Year January 07, 2007 |
There Are Options June 24, 2005 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
Someone this young is far too young to be asking this question!
Makes me feel a little sorry for this kiddo. It's been my experience that if you have to ask if someone liked what you did, they probably didn't and you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Shell toook the words out of my mouth, or at least off my fingertips...especially for kids this age, if whoever doesn't say anything about what you made/did for them, they probably didn't even notice, particularly if the recipient was an adult. Poor kids, sometimes they work so hard planning and doing and think you're going to be blown away....and the person just brushes it aside. It's long ago now that I had occasion to give my mother presents...which I never saw again. I still remember. She would always say she had put them away "for safekeeping". Even at age 7 she didn't fool me.
I'll show you my stuf if you show me yours.
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@baby basil ... my first spouse did the same sort of thing, except the presents went back to the store for refunds. Hurt just as bad, I think.
BB and Librarian, how sad. My Mommy showed me an ashtray/cup/bowl or something I had made in kindergarten thirty years later. My skill with clay has not improved. Poor little kid, hope they are not scarred for life.
I will use it to keep some of her ashes in after the memorial.
As a parent, I saved every painting my kid made last year in kindergarten. They are pretty much all the same landscape scene (ocean with radiant sun or pasture with radiant sun). If this keeps up, I'll need a bigger house. When is it ok to let some of that stuff go?
Yes, I like it very much. It is safe, high quality, and reliable. Thank you.
@Feeling, it's ok to let it go when you can slip it into the trash can without the kid knowing it (i.e. trash collection day, as the truck's pulling up to your house.)
After my grandmother passed, my dad gave me a box in which she'd saved little things I'd made for her (like a horse head carved from soap). Now, all of that stuff has an emotional weight attached to it and I'll end up schlepping it around and not be able to throw it away since it was important enough to my grandmother to keep it for 40 some-odd years.
Librarian, my present spouse does the same thing. Every present i get him, gets returned, or is unused, etc. There was a time when i thought that it was me. Maybe i wasn't listening close enough to him asking what he wanted, or i didnt know him well enough. Now i realize that its him.
Katie made a little cardboard house for her cat, not understanding that it was a ceramic cat and didn't really need a house. She made a note asking the cat if it liked the stuff she made and put in the house. She felt hurt because the ceramic cat never answered yes or no.
i keep (have kept) everyting that my neices, nephews, stepkids, other peoples' kids make (have made me) ... i'm going to have to rent another house just to store them. i don't have the heart to get rid of any of them and it's sweet to look back on them sometimes and remember how young and cute they were before turning teen terribles >p
this of course would be on the fridge (for months) with a big ol' circle around yes!
I'm with sam in sane.. of course, the answer to this question is YES!
mona lisa, my spouse and I could never get it right, so we finally figured out that what works best is we tell each other what we want, we even shop together, and we get each others' approval before buying gifts. Then we wrap up the gifts and wait until the special day to open them. Okay, no surprise.. but we get something we like and will use, and no feelings hurt. Usually we add something inexpensive, like a book or CD, that will be a surprise. But still, that usually turns out to be something the giver appreciates more than the recipient!
But that's not the same as a handmade gift. Handmade gifts in my family were always treasured more than purchased ones. The less perfect, the better. I have three under-bed boxes full of my daughter's drawings and clever inventions, and a couple of file folders full of original stories, philosophy statements, theories and poems. And five portable file boxes full of school work.
No I did NOT save it ALL! Someday I'll hand it all over to her, like my mother did with the stuff she saved that I made as a child.
NO, she didn't save everything, either. At some point she culled it down to a large cardboard box full for each of us kids. And it is a thrill to look back through it as an adult, remembering the childhood club rules, drawings and stories, including a neighborhood newspaper (one headline reads "Mom and Dad are Smoking Again" illustrated with a childish drawing of a man's and woman's faces, cigarettes in their mouths, smoke wreathing between them).
My second grade teacher had us make "weekend stories" each Monday. We wrote a few sentences and illustrated them. My mother saved all of those, which is really cool, because it serves as a journal of our family's activities for a whole year (a year of upheaval for our family). These were done on cheap newsprint, and the paper is yellowing and disintegrating. It's possible to save that stuff nowadays, by scanning it, which is what I did.
So, to Feeling in coherent.. I'd suggest that you get some under-bed boxes, and try to limit it to saving one or two representations of stuff done in school. But definitely save all the brilliant examples that express your offspring's uniqueness. You can photograph the 3-D treasures and digitize the flat artwork if it's small enough to scan.
Andrew Hammond Kendall: Yes, this makes me happy. Especially the backward N.
@ mona lisa ... I learned the same valuable lesson, and it's one of the reasons that my former spouse is "former"
@ feeling ... you can make a selection of the "best of the best" and save those
@ clover ... thanks
And, about scanning, I believe it's only good for the short term. Really, who has any files from back when personal computers got going that are still usable? Hardware and software gets upgraded, file formats change, computer stuff changes so quickly. None of "junior feeling in coherent's" [or is that "feeling a little in coherent"??] digitized stuff will be viewable when junior is our age.
So save the paper, too.
(and if I'm wrong about the scanned images, then the paper will be even that much more precious!)
@Librarian: I don't buy my spouse presents. We go together and he chooses something, or I do, or we both do. He has odd tastes (like a recording of a certain symphony in So-and-So's version) which I know I can't meet.
What hurts worse is when you take time and trouble choosing presents for your spouse's sister...and the day after Christmas you drop into her little gift and notions shop to pick up some thread, and there are your presents...for sale again. THAT is above and beyond the call, and below the belt.
I feel quite young after reading these comments.
Baby Basil, the sentence that starts with "poor kid..." reminds me of something a person might read in Catcher in the Rye. If J. D. Salinger were still alive I think I would write him a letter asking him to include that sentence somewhere in the book. It would fit quite nicely, I think.
WOW BB...That's insane! My sis and BIL are notorious for taking things back. Not because they don't like the gifts, they just like cash better. I thought that sucked. We no longer give gifts under the guise of too many in-laws and kids. When they opened gifts the day after their wedding, BIL kept trying to put EVERYTHING in the return pile. They were moving from KS to CA the next day to a brand new apartment in a strange city. He thought a couple of plates and forks would be plenty and all those pesky kitchen utensils would just be more wedding money. My mom--his new MIL--finally pulled him aside and said "something" to him. He shut up and he's still scared of her 13 years later. Yea Mom!
We got way the hell off the subject again didn't we. The gift problem gave rise to the Christmas fruitcake. Regifting is so much more fun now!
I remember one time on my mothers birthday, I was really young, like 7 or so.. Anyways, I had no money so I had to make a gift to let her know I cared for her. It was a piece of wood, like a square and I put silly string all over it spelling out "Happy Birthday" wasn't so easy to do.. Well later on that day, I peeked around the corner hallway to the living room, and there she was, slipping that 'made from the heart' present in to the wood stove. Still hurts to think about it. We no longer have any relationship at all to tell you the truth. Parents can be cruel, they really can!
*glares again at this find* I hate YOU! lol
I like how he/she first spelled "stuff" correctly then changed his/her mind and dropped the second "f". Eventually you learn to go with your gut, even if it's not always correct. =)
@ Moonshine ... ah, so you not only warmed her heart with your gift, but your gift warmed her body, too.
What? That didn't help heal the psychic bruising? I didn't think it would. Sorry.
Was this found on the ground? Or in a trashcan? Or both? Very misleading...
As a little girl, I never had to write notes like this, cuz my dad kept everything I ever made him. He still has a 'special folder', of old notes and cards...and he is in his 70s. But I sure do remember notes like this in 6th grade from classmates:
Clark doesn't want to 'go with' you anymore, but Darren says he will. Do you want to 'go with' Darren? ___yes ___no ___maybe so
Give this note back to me. Sincerely, Matt
Looking back, I wish I'd have told Matt the one I wanted to 'go with' was him.
@Sara- I was thinking the exact same thing? I bet it was the trashcan, but the finder said ground because he didn't want everyone to know he was dumpster diving at the car wash!
If the kid was smart, his options would've been "yes" and "yes"
since this find was written on some industrial company letterhead, it reminds me of something written at "bring your kid to work day"
Cute, my nieces used to write little notes like this with strict instructions to circle our answer. It was cute and they were always pleased when we wrote something on the bottom.
If you don't like my stuff - do you like my junk? Howabout my 'pile of crap',clutter, collateral, debris, filth, hogwash, litter, miscellany, offal, refuse, rubbish, rubble, rummage, salvage, scrap, trash, waste?
YES or NO
i found this note.
i like the take your kid to work day theory.
i really don't know if i found it on the ground or in a trashcan, but i am not ashamed of dumpster diving. i look through all the trashcans and keep lots of things. i even eat some food i find in the trash, and I AM NOT ASHAMED OR EMBERASSED BY THAT AT ALL.
look for more finds from me in the future and the past.