Exposure

The ancient Greeks exposed their unwanted babies to the elements. 

In Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine, the narrator -- a young man at the time of the Peloponnesian Wars -- tells of the starvation and desperation experienced by the Athenian people during the Spartan encirclement and blockade of their city.  He makes the heartbreaking decision to expose his baby brother among the rocks at the foot of the Acropolis.

"If the gods had not forbidden it, my brother, I would put you to sleep before I left you, for night comes on; this is an empty place, and the clouds look dark upon the mountains.  But the blood of kindred is not to be washed away, ....  So forgive me, and suffer what must be.  The clouds are heavy; if the gods love you, before morning there will be snow."  It was dark already.  For a long time as I walked away I could hear him crying....

I was reminded of this depressing passage a few minutes ago, walking through my neighborhood.  In the unmowed grass of a neighbor's parking strip, I saw a small microwave unit.  It looked as good as new.

Taped to its top was a sign: "Free."

It seems to be a common custom among my neighbors to dispose of unwanted items this way.  Rather than hold a garage sale, or offer the item on e-Bay, or -- as I do -- add it to the clutter in the basement, they put it outside with a sign that -- however worded -- in effect says "No One Loves Me; Take Me."

Not just microwaves, but bookcases, sofas, chairs, stacks of books -- all free for the asking.  And in nice weather, as we're having this week, I suppose this is an efficient way to find someone to give a good home to an unneeded item.  But this is Seattle.  We have rain, we have dew.  Even our sun, after a time, damages many items.  It hurts to see a perfectly good sofa become wet with rain, and then redolent of mildew.

I tend to anthropomorphize absurdly, I realize.  "The poor lonely microwave," I think.  Like the abandoned Christmas tree in the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.  Like the abandoned baby in the Renault story, exposed to the elements, for whom we can only hope that the snow and cold reach out and touch him before the wolves do.   I do anthropomorphize, admittedly.  But still -- there must be a better way.

I can almost hear that microwave, crying now in the distance. I hope someone rescues it before the rains come.