The Drifter's Horn of Plenty

Roxanne and I were cleaning out the house, putting together the annual box to send to Salvation Army so I can go buy it all back in a few months. After all was totaled and compiled, I had two major items left, a handful of old beers and a Mexican porno movie.

The beers were holdovers from a New Year’s Eve 2003-2004 when friends brought beers of choice. I only like cheap beer (Old Mil, PBR) and microbrews, and tend to loathe the middle of the road stuff. I had in my possession three Honey Brown Lagers, two Rolling Rock “Green Lights” and two Heinekens. I don’t like any of these and they sat in the cooler until March until they were migrated to my garage where they sat in the Florida heat for a year.

The Mexican porno was an oral sex flick received as a gag gift (insert pun here) from a grab bag (insert another pun here) at a Christmas party a few years back. I never watched it. Okay, I started to watch it once and when I realized that I didn’t get English subtitles I stopped it because I could never follow a plot line in Spanish. Plus, the cover suggests it is likely evil, freaky, disturbing porn. It sat for two years on my bookshelf waiting for me to be killed in an accident so survivors could find it and infer that I was a completely freaky pervert.

Despite their intrinsic value to someone, charitable organizations shun such donations, especially when I demand a sizeable receipt for tax deduction. So I sat akimbo with the pile of stuff… what to do?

I decided to make someone’s day. We placed the items into a box. We were going to leave it by East Palatka high school, as stumbling upon a box of beer and porno as a tormented hillbilly teen is kind of like finding a zillion-dollar bill or a case of Moon Pies. A clever high school suitor could get his babe good and sauced with the crappy beer and then get her turned on with his international smut exhibit. However, discretion won, and we figured we’d get caught and go to jail, and then be labeled as sex offenders wherever we moved forever.



We decided it was a better idea to pass this gift along to those that have none; so we offered the box to the drifters, the ne'er-do-wells and cretins sequestered about the overpass by I-95. Under the cover of night, we placed the box of stuff by the overpass and slipped off into the night.

The next morning the box had predictably vanished. I didn't know for sure, but inside I knew that somewhere up in the weeds there was a guy passed out, surrounded by seven empty bottles, with one hand down his pants, the other hand clutching the porno box, and a smut-filled videocassette under his greasy locks as a pillow. Lord knows if Norman Rockwell was alive he’d be preserving the moment on canvas. It was a fine moment for me and Roxy, the right way to gift our unwanted items unfit for charitable donation to someone that would ultimately appreciate them.