Is it the best of times? Is it the worst of times? Why does everything seem upside-down in Crazy Town….again?

Back when I worked summers in a Cape Cod seafood restaurant, the guys in the kitchen would spend their days boiling lobster and watching CNBC on a little television that sat atop the quahog freezer. This was back when Maria Bartiromo always looked super serious, and to that effect I would ask why we were stuck watching The Drama Channel for hours on end. Stock market prices of varying values crawled over the screen and it was served up all day with a side of serious hair and black eye liner. That was my idea of drama in the summer days of my late teens.

I was only half kidding when I described the stock market ticker as such, and now as I get older I can see that this kind of cause and effect churn really does have serious consequences for real people. In fact, we’re seeing this take place right now.

No one knows whether or not the government is really going to shut down in a few hours, and this form of B-rate kabuki is not only dramatic, but it’s annoying and plenty scary. I got to work this morning and was slightly sickened at the 24 hour news channels that displayed countdown clocks in the bottom right of their screens. My wallet is not immediately affected by this potential shutdown– but there are plenty of folks amongst the cubicles whose lives are getting pretty interesting with each second approaching midnight.

As I’m thinking about all of this, I’m also thinking about all of the crap I come upon each morning in the main area where the elevators take each wing of fellow apartment dwellers down to the main floor.

Take a look:

The time is now 5AM. This stuff was not here when I went out for my run 25 minutes ago.

Is it a purse? Is it an Irish fisherman’s sweater? It’s neither! It’s unwanted!

If these shoes could talk…I’m not sure I’d want to hear where they’ve been.

I actually know a few middle aged men who might benefit from these books…

For people who are too lazy to drag stuff into the hallway. I mean really, 40 and 15 bucks? Why not just make it free?

I’m starting to think that I’m paying way too much for rent; I could probably just live in the hallway and off the products being supplied by lazy (and female) Samaritans.

Free coffee maker…with no accompanying filters or Rwandan coffee beans? The nerve of some people. I’m passing on this one.

I’ve been taking these kinds of photos on and off for about a year now, and what you see here is only a small selection of the stuff that is placed up for grabs each week. Every time I stand and wait for the elevator to arrive, I take quick stock of the discards and try to imagine the moment when all of this stuff enjoyed real value- or at least enough to warrant relocation into the striped halls of this apartment complex.

Everything that is left here doesn’t usually sit for very long. At all hours of the day and night you will see things crop up and fade away as if they were mirages from ten minutes ago. And you never see anyone leave their items on the elevator’s doorstep, either. I’m not sure that the practice is officially sanctioned by our building managers, but the informal Freecycle Network seems to do pretty brisk business.

All of this brings me back to our current fiscal countdown. It looks like it’s gonna happen, and if I were a betting girl I’d say that there are still a load of folks out there who are only a paycheck or two away from defaulting on their financial obligations. And a large part of this is probably due to the fact that we haven’t really learned from the lessons of the past decade. We are still accumulating a ton of crap that we will soon discard long before it has run the manufacturer’s suggest life cycle. Because a fisherman sweater handbag only looks cool for so long. Ah, the folly of consumerism.

I really don’t have much else to say on the subject, except of course maybe to acknowledge that I too participate in this kind of behavior. Sure, I may still wash out my Ziploc bags for a second and third reuse (a byproduct of living in Africa), but I will also tell you that I own an under-rotated stock of handbags and non-uniform issue shoes that might could find a new home were I to leave them on that mirrored foyer ledge. Cole Haan Verona T-Strap size 10, ladies- only worn five times!

It’s the great American race for stuff and more stuff and it’s a race against the clock to buy more so we can slough off everything that purports to bog us down. Doesn’t exactly make much sense, but at least for me I get something new to look at each day come 6AM when I’m running for the office and waiting for an elevator to materialize. That, my friends is my version of the modern day Drama Channel- at least until we hit midnight.