Wednesday 2 June 2010

Meta-draining

When we moved here, some nice old ladies in the Berkeley Equipment Loan Center gave us lots of stuff. The Center seems to be a sort-of charity, where ex-students leave useful things for new students to use, presided over by ancient volunteers. I think we had to pay a $6 deposit, and you were allowed to visit twice and take whatever you could carry.

I remember entering the dusty Aladdin's cave, enviously eying the fake-wood-veneer 70's televisions and a record player or two. Hannah, however, restrained me, and we left with things that have actually proved incredibly useful for two years - a duvet, lamps, a toaster, etc.

Now university life has drawn to a close, and with it our borrowing privileges. I'm not sure they can actually trace where we live, but the possibility of a friendly old lady arriving at my door wanting to know where her kitchen equipment has got to, then sucking my soul out through my chest as forfeit (it's how they remain strong!), does not appeal.

So tonight we cleaned and tidied everything into boxes, and tomorrow I return it. Another nail in the coffin - figuratively - of being a student. Then it's off to the charity shops to find replacements :)


Look! It's our borrowed dish drainer, washed and draining on our newly-purchased replacement drainer! Clever.