I’ve written before about posting want ads to my school system’s county-wide classifieds service. Since then I’ve actually sold and bought a few things. It’s a great work perk even though it is immensely distracting: I check it every time the “new message” indicator flags, because good deals go fast.

Recently I was too slow to grab the “make an offer, make a trade, or free” ceiling fan, but I was totally on the ball for the “free stereo.” I emailed the lady right away, and she responded promptly:

I don’t think my daughter mentioned that this sound system does not play cds – just 78 records, cassettes and has a really good radio. It was a great system when my husband bought it, because he always bought high quality electronics.


It has two free-standing speakers that are several feet tall and can blare through the house. The system, itself is in layers and on a special wooden stand that John has made for it. Due to retirement and dementia, John has not used the sound system for about six years. It is sitting in his office in our downstairs, but is in excellent condition.


Would you like me to send pictures this evening?

Pictures? Not necessary. For free, this sounded way too promising.

A few days later M and I had an evening out, and we stopped by the lady’s house to pick up the stereo. By this time I’d convinced myself that it would be a piece-of-crap electronical setup that I’d test, dislike, and take to the landfill, and the idea of wasting precious date time on someone else’s trash was already annoying me.

But then I saw the system: fancy-looking speakers of a brand I’d never heard of before, huge surround sound digital receiver with more ins-and-outs than you can shake a remoteless finger at, a 3-head cassette player and recorder with every bell and whistle I’ve ever imagined, an “automatic turntable system,” and….

“Oh, it does have a CD player,” I said to the lady, who I’d learned works at the same university from which her husband retired. She’d gotten him to stay in their bedroom upstairs; occasionally I heard him call, “Honey, Is everything okay?”

“Maybe we should hurry,” she said, “before he comes out. I don’t know how he’d take me getting rid of his stereo.”

“I wasn’t expecting the CD player,” I said. “Do you want to keep it?”

“I don’t know if it works,” she said. “If I’d have known that the system had a working CD player, I would have sold it. But you just take it all.”

“Are you sure? This is a really nice system.”

“Yes, it is. John always bought the best. We would blast Christmas music through the whole house from down here in his study.”

I didn’t argue anymore about the CD player, of course–it was a six-disc changer–and we loaded it all up in our van and drove away.

After setting it up the next day, I said to M, “This is the stereo system I’ve dreamed my whole life of having.” We blasted Handel’s Messiah through the house in honor of the lady’s Christmas memories, and I emailed her to thank her again.

But I was in a bit of moral quandary: Did the lady really know what she was getting rid of, for free? Was I taking advantage of a semi-old lady with a dementia-inflicted husband? Should I offer her some money even though I wouldn’t have taken the system except for the fact it was free?

And she really did seem happy that it was going to someone appreciative.

And I may be able to return the favor, as she emailed a couple days later to see if I could help her set up her laptop when she gets one. I said I’d be happy to, of course, but what’s there to do in a laptop setup?

Anyway, I just now got to some price checking on ebay, and it looks like this whole system used is worth about $225 for the components and as much for the speakers.

Do I send her some money?