Matriarchal Money.

I do like Freecycle, it saves all that faff of putting an add in the local purple pages, and it brings out the nice side of people. First to go was my old red office chair, a constant friend and support to my bottom for many years. It began with a somewhat slow gentleman ringing to say he wanted it. Strangely every instruction I gave him, directions and stuff, he repeated very loudly. He then explained he had to shout them to his wife because she couldn’t use the phone but she had sent the e-mail and could use the compute and he couldn’t. They arrived and his wife said the chair was just right because she could easily whip up a cover for the threadbare seat so they left happy with their zero purchase. The next was a chap for the still new-in-the-box car cassette radio. Unfortunately the car died shortly after the implant some ten years ago. He was a bit snatchy for my liking but pleasant and thankful enough. Later an attractive young lady of Asian decent came to pick up Mothermouse’s old printer. There were mixed emotions here. There was some doubt about its functioning and she gratefully gave me a bag of Lint chocolates. I was both touched and under a cloud of possible remorse until much later we remembered it was working it just didn’t work with Windows 7. The next day two fortunately strong lads arrived to take my old 28” Sony TV from the attic leaving enough space to set up a table-tennis table. Again I noticed guys are of the ‘thanks mate, gone’ persuasion where women are more appreciative and happy to spend a moment chatting about hearing impairment and cushion covers. So in some way I’ve yet to fathom Freecycle points to a new more matriarchal economy based on a currency of mutual gratitude. It feels so much nicer than pounds, shillings and pence.