You know how people sometimes want to raise money for a variety of good causes – like, say, a local public school – and they invite people who want to help raise money to donate gently used items to be sold in a garage-type sale.  The organization collects donations that may or may include such treasures as:

1. A set of my little ponies, one of which is painted/coloured all over with white paint/chalk and looks in rough shape as well as a my little pony that is actually a sheep but looks like a pony with smallpox.
2. A Christmas tree ornament inscribed with the year “2001″.
3. A hard plastic case that opens like a clamshell, intended to hold eye make up. Almost certainly from the 1980′s.  Contains no make up but half a dozen eye shadow applicators, apparently unused.
4. A set of half a dozen cardboard coasters with “Coors Light” on them. (Can an elementary school sell an alcohol related item for profit?)
5. Two muppets/Sesame Street “sticker books” circa 1985 (according to the copyright on the book). 1985 being the era when sticker meant you have to punch out a paper image along the perforated line and lick the back in order to adhere to the picture like when sealing an envelope. Kids probably get brain damage from licking those things.
6. All manner of UGLY used candle holders.
7. Figurine of all shapes and sizes. Who doesn’t want a white ceramic naked angel baby or a tiny pioneer woman wearing a Miss America sash? (Can an elementary school sell nude statues for profit?)
8. Raggedy, nasty, stained stuffed animals. Some almost certainly dating back to MY childhood.
9. A decorative doll that looks like a corpse and winds up to play “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” while her head sways back and forth in a super crreepy fashion.

If I were helping with the sorting of such items I might just compose a letter to the (almost unilaterally well-off) parents of the school that went some like this:

Dear Parents,

The purpose of a fundraiser, as you may or may not be aware, is to RAISE FUNDS.  The purpose of a loonie/twoonie table is to allow the young children of our school to buy Christmas gifts for family members that they can purchase without assistance from parents.  By emptying out your garbage cans or the boxes you haven’t opened since 1987 into your donation boxes you are accomplishing neither of these goals as we cannot, in good conscience, sell your shit to innocent schoolchildren and, if we do not sell anything, we will not raise any funds. If you didn’t want your trash you should throw it in your local waste disposal container, commonly referred to as a GARBAGE CAN. If you wouldn’t like to receive a dirty Sylvester the Cat  stuffy for Christmas, maybe you shouldn’t be sending your corpse doll for our sale?

The idea of this sale is not to find items that are worth 25 or 10 cents and sell them for such, but rather, to find good quality, gently or never-used items that are worth quite a bit, and sell them for only a little because we want our children to experience the joy of giving and to raise a little cash for a good cause.

Get your heads out of your rear ends and wake up! The items you throw away each week are better than what you sent to raise money for the school your precious offspring attend! And if you think that we don’t know that a very high percentage of you bastards are making twice or three times as much as the teachers who educate your children you are so very wrong!

Yours disdainfully,
A fellow parent

Lucky for the administration at my school, it certainly wasn’t me who was sorting that shit. Ahem.