Dumpster Diving

Teachers spend a lot of money on their classrooms, and to be honest with you - I am out of money.

I mean, I technically still have money in our bank account, but Rex insists that we should spend that on "practical" things such as rent and groceries.

Long story short, I can't afford to buy a bookshelf.

I have some great books to share with my fifth graders, but I can't afford a bookshelf to put them on.  The only shelf space available in my room is a shelf above the coat rack.  It was better than nothing, so I put my books on it.  For the entire first week of school, students would have to drag a chair over to the shelf and stand on the chair just to be tall enough to read the titles.

Then yesterday, as I was walking out of school to go home for the day, something in the dumpster caught my eye.

It was like in those cheesy movies when the detective finds just the clue he was looking for, and it lights up all shiny like the sun was shining directly on it.  My bookshelf was glowing in the dumpster.

I hurried over to the dumpster, thinking that maybe I was hallucinating a bookshelf because I wanted one so badly.  Nope - there it was - a perfect wooden.............something.  I'm still not exactly sure what this item was in a past life.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't a bookshelf.  It's a bookshelf now, though, and that's what matters.

I quickly hauled the wooden something out of the dumpster area and examined it.  Why would someone throw this away?!  It was a perfectly nice wooden something!  I inspected it for infestations of spiders or scorpions, but it looked clean and perfect.  I wanted to jump for joy, but can you imagine what you would think if you saw your teacher jumping around and dancing in the dumpster?  I decided to play it cool.

I picked the something up and carried it into the building (good thing I've been working out!).  It fit perfectly in the space where I wanted my nonexistent bookshelf to go, and my kids were so excited about it when they came to school today.  Hooray for my dumpster find!  My kids don't know it's from the dumpster, though.  Shhhhh...that's our little secret.