Yard sales
"One man's trash is another man's treasure" is a concept I can intellectually grasp but just emotionally never took hold. I find very little good in stuff other people throw out; I figure that unless they're daft, they're probably throwing the stuff out for a very good reason.
My wife thinks differently. She loves yard sales. She's also great at thrift shops, consignment stores, and other places where you can find bargains, usually by sifting through mounds and piles of other people's used dreck.
Now, I don't fault her for this. In fact, I'm quite jealous. Her ability to find bargains is, as near as I can tell, as highly developed a mutant superpower as Cyclops' ability to shoot lasers out of his eyes or Nightcrawler's bamf.
We're a family of five struggling to make ends meet on a single income, and I'm desperately thankful that she can do this. She's managed to outfit our kids with some great clothes that cost literally nothing or next to nothing. Designer dresses for my daughter for free from a clothing drive a nearby church does a few times a year, for example. Or the jeans she's wearing today, which fit well and look good, for a buck.
I, however, have no such skills.
in that generates a positive emotion while shopping. I do not enjoy shopping. Categorically.
But more than that, I can see Bonnie get this thrill, this rush of adrenaline, when she finds something cool for free or cheap. Try as I might, I just cannot share the enthusiasm.
I'm put off by the whole experience: The jostling for space against blue-haired pensioners who smell of mothballs and denture adhesive; the sifting through piles of irrelevant crap looking for that one thing that might be useful; the sorting; the ability to distinguish meaningful patterns in noise, like finding one decent pair of Osh-Kosh-B'Gosh overalls for James amongst other stuff that's just not worthwhile.
I just wish I didn't have to be a part of it.
See, for Bonnie, this is not a solitary activity. It's a group thing. It's something we have to do as a couple, and by extension, that means as a family. Part of it is because she likes it when I can carry the stuff she buys. Part of it also is because she just doesn't like to do stuff alone.
Day in and day out, however, season to season, Bonnie makes this work. It's one of those great examples of where one spouse's shortcomings are totally compensated for by the other spouse's strengths, and I love her for it.