It’s only appropriate that on the heels of having our lovely home featured in BHG that I should go ahead and share my ghetto Christmas decoration on the front lawn. HA. Here in our city, we have Big Junk Cleanup once a month. For those of you not familiar with the great joy of the Big Junk Cleanup, this is the day when all the people in the land put out the stuff that’s too big to fit in their trashcans and it’s carried away by the garbage men. I particularly love big junk for two reasons:

1. All the boxes that are in my house from receiving shipments are now purged. AHHHHH YES.

2. I can drive around and find other people’s awesome stuff that they’ve put onto the curb for someone to take. In the past, I have picked up the following: a children’s table, a really cool Hollywood Regency-esque valance I intended to recover and never did, and copious other amounts of random items.

I’m clearly a fan. So imagine my joy – my thrill! – when I am riding with Nancy to the post office the other day and down the street, what should our wondering eye should appear but the most glorious brokedown Christmas ferris wheel.

Do you like how I semi-rhymed that? Yeah.

Now. For some backstory on said ferris wheel. Less than a quarter from a mile down the street from us is a lovely home that always puts up a TON of super festive Christmas decorations, including the FW. But this year, I noticed they didn’t put out as much stuff, which was disappointing to Jude as he looooves for us to drive by nightly and ooh and aah over everything. So. A few days later, Nancy and I are driving by in her suburban and we spot the FW! On the side of the road, no less! Available! For free! This is too good to pass up, we decide. I mean, what kid wouldn’t love to have a Christmas decoration like THAT in their yard, brokedown or not? And what with Jude begging me for some outdoor Christmas decor (apparently 2 Christmas trees and a honeycomb wall display is not cutting it this year for him), I figure this is the perfect (free) solution.

But as we approach, there’s another truck circling the cul de sac. He wants it too! NO! Nancy makes a move to get out of the car and the guy is apparently so freaked out at the site of two 30 something blondes in a Suburban that he doesn’t even think twice – he takes off. The Ferris Wheel ain’t worth it. So we hop out of the car and begin negotiating how we’re going to get this thing home to my house. We try jamming it into the back of the giant Suburban, and finally decide on leaving the back hatch open, and I’ll just walk slowly behind the car holding it in place.

We made it about 10 feet.

At this point we’re both about to pee our pants because we are laughing so hard. And so since we’re really super close to my house, we leave Nancy’s car in the street and walk the darn thing back to our house, where we continue to laugh our heads off. I rub my hands together in anticipation of what Jude and Simon will say when they come home. The short of it was this: Jude was thrilled, and Simon will BE thrilled when Big Junk January 2014 comes around. He is convinced we are ghetto neighbors. I have also had to explain the concept of Big Junk to Jude, who is semi-convinced that I have stolen it from the neighbors’ house.

So here’s where the funny part comes in. A few days later, I post the photo to Instagram and a friend of mine from high school almost immediately responds.

As if poor Simon wasn’t mortified enough, but they have us on video. ON VIDEO.

Fast forward a few days later when the mail man stops by to pick up some packages. “Hey, wasn’t that ferris wheel in the yard of the people around the corner?”

Umm, yes. Yes it was.