Buy, recycle, repeat

Diderot at the tip shop

Featured in

  • Published 20250204
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-04-3
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook. PDF

THE TIP SHOP opens at 10 am every Thursday. By 9.50 am there’s a line at the gate at least ten people deep. There’s the old couple who resell whatever they find here on Facebook Marketplace; the man who wears thongs year-round, no matter the weather; the retired tradies who know their way through a bucket of screws and a row of rusted tools. Elbow to elbow they wait, each hoping to be the first across the line. Restless thoroughbreds at the starting gate. And there’s Dad, tall, standing to one side with his hands in his pockets. Already looking over everyone’s heads to see what’s in the yard.

It’s not even open yet and I’m already late. I squeeze into the last car park and walk over.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Bad teeth

I have my own serious questions: what’s the truth about teeth? Teeth can be a vessel for so many things we want to believe in – whether those things are lies (imaginative or otherwise) or the truth is irrelevant. Teeth can go from magical to mundane in an instant. From beautiful to ugly, from correct to wrong and back again.

More from this edition

The blue room

FictionMum did not tell us that Sabina had tried to kill herself. She said that she was unwell, and because she was unmarried and her children lived interstate Sabina would stay with us while she convalesced. We figured it out after she arrived; she did not appear sick, but lively and plump. Nor was there any regularity to her medical appointments. Though Phoebe was irritated that she would have to share her bathroom we found the situation morbidly glamorous, the sick woman with the elegant name whose stay would end with recovery or its opposite. So many sibilant words: suicide, convalescence, Sabina. Having no knowledge of death or any conviction we would ever die, suicide seemed tinged with romance. That Sabina lived confirmed our belief that death was not serious.

Home is a long way away

Non-fictionThe Australian housing market is a wealth-generating machine, not a home-generating machine. So much is wrong with the current situation. No doubt you see it too; everybody seems to on some level. That’s why we keep hearing about the ‘Australian housing crisis’. I can see it, and I proudly consider myself an old-school capitalist, with a preference for free enterprise, fair competition, private property rights and the chance to make an occasional profit. We now find ourselves with a de facto caste system in Australia: the home owners relative to the home renters. Both groups need homes, but there is a marked wealth division between those collecting passive income on houses they own and those living solely on direct income who are forever chasing a rising market.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.