I've actually come to the conclusion that one cannot label Florence. This town simply defies such pesky boundaries. Today, it's the freest, friendliest and FUNkiest town. Tomorrow it might be something different.
How did I come to that conclusion today? Well, as you might know, I am married to The King of Impeccable Taste. We've already established he likes to makes folk art and steampunk and other crafts from things he fishes out of the Arkansas River or wherever. But we haven't established that he is also the KING OF THE PACKRATS. No, he's not a hoarder. As The Queen of Questionable Taste, I do run a pretty tight ship and rein (or should I say reign) in his packrat tendencies.
Another thing you might not know about the King is that he's the kind of guy that will hop in the car in a middle of a blizzard or monsoon to get you some ice cream or run any kind of errand just because I might be too lazy to leave the house--or want to trick him, so I can clean up his mounds of packrat stuff when he's gone. So, he's a pretty good all-around guy.
BUT, he KNOWS that the Queen gets a touch irritable when he brings more junk home.
Recently I asked him to run a few errands since the Queen had to do our taxes. The Queen is too cheap (um, thrifty) to hire someone to do taxes and gets a touch irritable around tax time.
The King dutifully gets lost for a few hours, going to the post office, etc. I go to the garage when he returns and catch him in the act. He has a sheepish look on his face as he twitches a bit. "Look what I got."
"Why the heck would we need a paint-stained crappy ladder," I muttered. "We already have good ladders and crappy ladders galore."
"This one was FREE!" He crowed.
I scowled.
I gave him the snake eye. In my Italian family, we used to call it the evil eye. But since I rather like the King at times, when the moon and tides are aligned and he isn't ticking me off--I decided to just do the snake eye and not the evil eye.
"What are you going to do with this beauty?" I asked with just a faint dollop of sarcasm.
The King, who has no nervous tics, did twitch again. He knows NOT to mess with the Queen when she is doing taxes.
"Well, haven't you seen these cool shelves they make out of ladders? In the antique stores?"
I replied, that I had seen no such thing and hoped to never see such a thing.
Then I got up closer to this mess of a ladder and saw something that made me smile.
The King stopped twitching.
"Who made that sign?"
"I don't know. Obviously the person who left it outside for free," he said.
"I'll be darned! That's why I love this town. Who would go through all the trouble to make such a cute sign and cartoon just to get rid of an old ladder," I grinned.
I do believe I am now attached to this crappy, paint-spattered ladder.
Isn't it a beauty? And look at some of the crapola (that's Italian for: Get this crap out of my house and garage before I make you some concrete booties and help you swim with the fishes) in the background. Old light fixtures that the King also got for FREE in Florence at some other person's house that just put a pile of stuff outside with a FREE sign. But that's another story. Oh, heck yeah--I'll tell that story in another blog post, because the King just cannot be stopped and someone needs to start a Fremont County Chapter of Packrats Anonymous.
Oh, I digress. This is why Florence is the free, friendly and FUNkytown this week--because not only do people leave free stuff in their yards for people like the King to delight in--they do it in the friendliest and FUNkiest manner. Oh yeah!
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