Dialogue: Treasure hunt, but don't tell anybody!

By ROANNE PARKER

Here's one for you. Take three kids, a boring Sunday afternoon, inorganic rubbish collection day looming and you have a treasure hunt. I have been overcome with a fit of giggles several times this week when I recall the steady stream of junk the kids trailed home with, having ventured all of about three doors down in either direction while I pulled weeds out of the front garden. What a bonanza they found.

First home was an electric typewriter, minus everything it needed to work, but they were grinning with joy at their discovery. It's still parked on the front verandah and has been a cash register playing shops and a computer at work.

Next came a lovely three-piece barbecue tool set, straight out of the 1970s and still in its box. And very gorgeous it was, too.

In the meantime Mister 10 had found the ribbon from the typewriter and was tying up the trees and lamp-posts on the street - just in case they tried to make a run for it, I suppose.

Which reminds me of a comment my brother-in-law made while staying with us last week: "Isn't it great when you've got kids around? I just tried to move a trike off the driveway only to discover it was chained to two skateboards and the old chests of drawers sitting on the back section." (Is it just my kids who have a penchant for chains, ropes, handcuffs, padlocks and sheriffs' badges?)

Anyway, next they found a faded blue umbrella with several spines missing but a perfectly good handle. Miss Six was stoked with that one. Having just put a couple of old director's chairs out there myself I was bemused to see Miss Eight wobbling down the driveway with another one from the neighbour's house, unfolding it, sitting down in triumph and grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Then there was the toy dragon, the three barstools and the foot pump for the airbed. All in all I decided we were probably in front.

I had managed to rid our garden of two old chairs, one pushchair, a rusty old BMX bike and a rebounder with three legs missing. In return we got several bits of junk, but I have to say the barstools scrubbed up well and are perfect in the kitchen.

After all that, I have a few observations to make about hard rubbish collections in general.

(1) If you are ever tempted to buy any kind of fitness equipment from late-night television infomercials, you might want to bear in mind that in my street alone this week I counted roughly 16,500 abdominisers, 15,098 fab flab-busters, 567 Nordic ski machines and half a dozen or so of those plain old bench presses.

(2) If they collected all the plastic garden furniture found in hard rubbish collections and melted it down, you could make a whole lot of new garden furniture.

(3) How many of those dark green plastic plant pots do you reckon we carry home from nurseries every year?

(4) Can that many people have old whiteware hanging around the place?

(5) It seems a lot of things come with polystyrene packaging these days.

(6) Is it polite to notice what the neighbours throw out?

It's kind of embarrassing to see your pile of battered and bruised mouldy old titbits assembled on the verge in front of the whole street.

I would have thought my neighbours weren't the types to have had an old toilet bowl, a velvet couch with no arms, a plethora of uned gym equipment or a mouldy, fake Persian rug to get rid of.

Heck, one of them had a 70s-style, tiled, eight-seater spa pool on the footpath. It's hard to pretend you've missed that one, I can tell you.

Perhaps they need to rename this cultural phenomenon Neighbourhood Swap Meet Weekend. I could tell quite easily that some of the vultures combing the streets for treasure among the trash were professionals.

There was one who had about three tandem trailers in a row, groaning with castoffs, and another, whose furniture truck was proudly labelled Jack's Junk, Estates a Speciality, who is no doubt set to claim that the fresh stock in his shop on Monday was from the sitting room of an old lady, recently deceased.

In the meantime, if you live up the road, I won't tell what you chucked out if you'll keep quiet about me. We just have to act normal - and try not to notice that your kids love my wonky old rebounder and I have your barstools under my kitchen bench.