Thankful for free stuff and accommodating mules

The 50-Acre Sandbox scores

Happy Thanksgiving from the 100-Acre Sandbox! We have a continual revolving door of people here, and there’s a limited amount of stuff we can take with us. As a result, when people leave, they tend to unload stuff. Many of the people come who come in with a whole bunch of food and stuff never wind up eating it because the cafeteria has so much. Since we’re not allowed to pack out food, a lot of it winds up on the free table. There’s one of those on each floor of each apartment building.

The free table’s not limited to food, but anything a person might want to unload. Beyond food, the most common items are books and cleaning supplies. I scored three bottles of Clorox bathroom cleaner and a couple James Patterson books recently. I’ve also scored a cooler, a couple big storage bins and an amazing drying rack. The latter’s been an awesome find and I really hope I can take it with me when I leave, but I suspect the reason it was left on the free table was that it doesn’t fit in the shipping containers.

One of my teammates left a couple weeks ago and I grabbed a bag of stuffing and French’s Onion Crisps  to put on top of green bean casserole. I knew Thanksgiving was coming up and for whatever warped reason, I thought I might use them. That was stupid because our cafeteria makes an awesome Thanksgiving meal. Fortunately, I recognized a couple days ago that I wasn’t going to use the stuff. I figured I’d give it away.

On Tuesday, I was at work and sent a note to a friend in our 50-Acre Sandbox a little farther north. They don’t have a cafeteria there and put on a potluck instead. During my first tour, I spent Christmas up there and made mashed potatoes, so I figured they’d be doing something fun. In messaging my friend, I mentioned that I’d thought about cooking and even had the crispy onions that go on top of the green bean casserole. She responded that she’s been shopping and had been unable to find them and their potluck was going to be crispy onion-less.

Well, we can’t have that! We have a regular flight between the sandboxes, and I know where to get the list of people taking that flight. I didn’t know any of them, but we’re all colleagues, so I picked one (there weren’t many!) and sent a note asking if I could send a little package through him. All I can say is we have awesome people here because he agreed. My friend had showed me a list of things they couldn’t find up there, and cranberry sauce was on it. Before I dropped off the package to the nice mule, I ran by the store and grabbed two cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce.

The community potluck in the 50-Acre Sandbox is no doubt thankful for their windfall, just as I am every time I find fun stuff on the free table.

I’m also thankful that I had an amazing Thanksgiving meal and didn’t have to cook or clean up. The cafeteria here, which seems to have its own supply from French’s and Ocean Spray, puts on quite an amazing spread. My Turkey Day lunch was salmon, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and, of course, turkey. So much that I didn’t even bother with the desserts, which, as I understand it, involved chocolate-covered strawberries. I’m debating going back for round two for dinner, but unless I get ravenously hungry in the next two hours, it’s not going to happen.

The only downside of having an amazing cafeteria to cook and serve food to you and then clean up is that there are no leftovers. Friday is the day for turkey sandwiches, but that doesn’t happen here. It’s a small price to pay, though, for all the good stuff we have.