Hauling Secrets

Good haulers know that if a piece of paper is spilling out of an old-looking box, you should always take a moment to see what it is. Especially if it the box has been gathering dust in the attic of a mansion whose owner claims it was left there by the owner-before-last.

It might turn out to be a phrenological reading from 1855:

Phrenological Character of [name of subject],
given at Fowlers and Wells and Co.’s Phrenological Cabinet,
142 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.
by D P[?] Butter, Professor of Phrenology
April 6th 1855

You have a predominance of brain and of the nervous system over the physical strength and energy. Your sphere will be one that will require some headwork and scholarship rather than physical strength and courage. You are rather delicately organized physically for a man and will never be capable of heavy work, yet it would be well for you to have some physical exercise if the labor is light and out-door, by way of developing your body… (more…)

I’m fine with fur and fuzz. They are quite comfortable when on blankets or coats or even Sean Connery. But when you put fur and fuzz on a door? This week’s “What were they thinking?” features, yess. FURFUZZ DOOR. It wasnt quite fur and it wasn’t quite fuzz but it definitely was something abnormal.

(Also take note of the faux tree branch handle.)

I’ve had many ideas floating in my head. This is one of them. Now we have all made those ugly purchases that we regret but this weekly posting shall feature the worst of the worst. Basically things that make one exclaim: What were you thinking?

This week. A bag that would make even Tina Turner shutter in horror and a chair with an utter.

Everyone has some phobias, be it common phobias such as claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), uncommon phobias like Ophthalmophobia (fear of being stared at), or just plain strange phobias such as Cibophobia (fear of food) or Defecaloesiophobia (fear of painful bowel movements).  And lest you think The Edge is full of defecaloesio, head over to phobialist.com and see for yourself.

Wait a sec, how do people with Cibophobia survive??

But I digress… while everyone has different phobias, everyone I know shares the same phobia: Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.  Which brings us full circle to the reason for this post: to share two frightening clown images Smidge and I recently unearthed.

The first is less truly frightening and more vaguely unsettling… 

Imagine yourself walking down a long corridor.  You open a door and find a room of animals.  They turn and look at you: “Sit and watch the clown with us… forever and ever and ever…”

Brace yourself!

Could a more chilling image be concieved?  I can’t decide which is more terrifying: It gazing hungrily at the baby, or the Aryan child saluting the Sieg Heil.  This image is from the cover of a film Smidge recently found, and when we work up the courage we will view the film and probably post a clip or two.

We all have those favorite finds. Whether it be pornfaces or letters, mine happens to be magazines. It isn’t uncommon to find me digging into a pile of unwanted magazines for at least 10 minutes before throwing them into the truck. It’s incredible that people don’t want to hang on to things like these. People give away valuable possessions to us all the time but it never ceases to amaze me when I come across 100 magazines from the 1940’s that people want to get rid of willingly.

Haulers, what are your favorite finds?

Not every hauler cares about what they throw into the backs of their trucks. We try to resist that sort of overbored, clockwatching way of working so typical of low wage labor. But some days, or some jobs, there just isn’t time to sneak a look into the myterious old suitcase you’ve just set on its way to the landfill.

And some mornings we’ll have to dump a truck that was filled by the crew from the previous day. We’ll get to the back of the truck, open the doors, and out will spill their leftovers - a complete surprise that for whatever reason they didn’t have the chance or the energy to deal with.

A complete surprise like these:

Artfully rendered in pencil and watercolor during the artist’s “marine love” period. Once doomed to the oblivion of the landfill, now preserved for near-eternity here on the internet.

And the world is about the same for it.

This is the first of what I’m sure will be many in a series of the gross, hilarious, and just plain strange objects we find in the yards, basements, attics, and (dungeons?) of the homes in Anytown, USA.

Here it is, the inexplicable advertisement that Smidge found inside the dead mouse house:

Ladies and gentleman, nothing named “Collagen Placenta” will ever go anywhere near my face. Here’s why:

1. Go to the Wikipedia page on “placenta“.
2. Scroll down.

That’s why The Edge will never soften his skin with this product. And as for the RNA-DNA (with vitamins and ENYMES!) claim, I may have to look back at some of my old biology textbooks, but I don’t believe that makes a shred of sense.