What are your thoughts on dibs? Yesterday had a sour note, thanks to a mysterious interloper who doesn't think much of them. Here is my tale of woe and crankiness: Josh arrived home from work with the news that there was a table downstairs, not in the trash area, where people usually pile their "I moved out oh god look at all this crap" trash, but in the mailbox area, where people less frequently leave furniture they're getting rid of.
So I went to look at the table, and lo! Now there were two tables, and some shelves, and a plant. One of the tables was just the thing to replace our current coffee "table," really some crates and some laminate shelves and some duct tape. It was a good size! It was not offensively hideous! It had a shelf underneath to store crap and to hold fat cats! What was lacking was a note indicating whether this bounty was free, or waiting for a truck to arrive to load it into, or what. I lurked around for awhile, and there was no sign of activity. Still, not wanting to be presumptuous, fearing the possibility that I might add a layer of panic to someone's moving day, I affixed a note to the table:
"Is this stuff free? If so, Apt. XX calls dibs on this table!"
A couple of hours later, I figured that the time limit for unattended furnishings had elapsed, and went back to check on the coffee table I'd of course decided was mine. And, of course, some bastard took it! Not all the stuff, just some, including my clearly-dibbed table. The nerve! The worst part is, you can just imagine what this person thought of my little note, my pathetic attempt to mark my territory. They thought nothing of flouting dibs. They mocked my dibs!
So I think this is lame, especially because I was trying to cover all the bases, to be nice. Next time such an ambiguous situation presents itself, I will no doubt be tempted to greedily grab, before some dibs-impaired person gets to it first.
What would you do if you found a dibbsed piece of furniture? Does dibs count here? Would you take it regardless, because it's an unkind world and you have to look out for yourself? Is dibs presumptuous in the case of the free stuff pile?
Posted by hilatron at May 15, 2006 01:11 PM | TrackBackI would totally not take something marked as dibs, unless at least a couple of days had passed since the dibsing. If this area is clearly understood to be the place where unwanted stuff is usually left for scavenging, then any decent person should have respected your dibs.
Posted by: Ana at May 15, 2006 02:29 PMI'd respect the dibs--unless more than a week had passed and the person hadn't come to claim his/her loot. I'd have done just as you did, and if I ever saw that table inside the front door of the dib-jumper's apartment, I'd go and stare at him until my eyes crossed, just to give him a good fright.
Posted by: Fahrvergnugen at May 15, 2006 07:40 PM.....But,....but, what if the "taker" was actually the owner come to retrieve his goods that had been only temporarily left til a proper transport conveyance was found?? Of course it would have been a courtesy to leave a note of explanation for you, had this been the case. But more than likely, it was a usurper, ignorer of "dibs," and otherwise unsavory character who robbed you of what should have been yours. CRAP!!
Posted by: Auntie Jean at May 15, 2006 10:40 PMA friend of mine was fond of the expression, "Life is like a shit sandwich and every day is another bite." The constant rebuking we take for behaving civilized is wearing but you clearly are not part of the problem in this ego-centric society of ours. Keep the faith and take comfort in the adage, "what comes around goes around." With any luck you will get to see the transgressor of your dib twisting in anguish from an awakening of their evil ways! Bohahaha.
Posted by: Red Hog at May 21, 2006 11:20 AMDibs means dibs. That is just wrong.
Posted by: K at May 22, 2006 01:13 PM