We have this great big solid oak desk that my husband used in his office when he worked in downtown Vancouver. It is so large that it wouldn't fit up the stairs in the last place we lived it, a townhouse, so it languished in the garage for a year. In our current house, the living room is big enough that it fits perfectly in a corner and has become my desk. It's so big that I have two wicker file baskets on the top and each one holds a napping cat - "In" and "Out" (the "Out" basket holds the cat that doesn't belong to us). The desk was made in California and is a real beauty. It's a two pedestal model, with three pull out shelves to pile files on. One of those shelves is for "my secretary" to rest her steno pad on and take down all my rambling thoughts and later transcribe them.
I made my living that way for many years - hard to believe I once knew Pitman shorthand. Anyway, I digress - the desk is now for sale. So today I was sitting at my desk, and hubby was standing next to it with drink in hand and helping me go through the drawers and get rid of stuff so we can put this wooden baby up for sale. His "help" consisted of saying "throw it out, throw it out" and my part was to jump up and down and throw the items either in the trash bin, the recycling bin, or else the piles going to friends or the charity shops. He doesn't know about my secret pile - the little bits I'm hiding away to take with us to Costa Rica.
