Danny Katz: My beloved is a rag-and-bone man

Back in the 19th century there were old bearded men who rode around on grimy horse and carts, collecting all the junk and scraps that people threw out – then they’d take it home, fix it up, and try to resell it to eke out a meagre existence.

And somehow I wound up married to one. A younger unbeardy female one. And she doesn’t ride around in a grimy horse and cart: she’s got a 2007 Subaru, but it kind of smells the same.

My beloved is a rag-and-bone man, but she doesn’t do it to eke out a meagre existence: she does it strictly for pleasure. Any time I hear the car pull up in the driveway, I wait for the seven dreaded words that strike terror into the heart of every rag-and-bone man’s partner: “HEY, CAN YOU HELP ME WITH THIS?”

Then I have to lug in some rotting hunk of mouldy, splintery crap that she found on the side of the road, me carrying the weight of one end, 200 nesting earwigs helping out with the other.

It could be an old dining table that she spotted on a street corner and somehow squeezed into the car, the legs conveniently folding down thanks to wet-rot. It could be an upholstered armchair she found in a throw-out pile, with a weird dark stain on the seat, possibly spilled coffee, possibly an organ prolapse.

It might be a bentwood chair that she picked up from a nature strip – a perfectly good one just sitting out the front of someone’s house, hidden behind a half-filled removalist truck. Why anyone was throwing it out was a complete mystery.

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It’s all garbage, it’s all worthless – but then my rag-and-bone man does her rag-and-bone magic, using a rag and the bones of her dexterous fingers. She gives the thing a clean, a paint, a fix-up, then puts it out on display – which is why our house now looks like a Deceased Estate Sale that’s been laid out really tastefully.

In the living room there’s a quaint set of mismatched dining chairs that are so wobbly you can’t put your full weight on them – you have to hover over them in a squat position like you’re using an airport toilet.

On every wall is beautiful hand-painted wood art that she made out of salvaged fence palings, with rusty nails still poking out, giving it that trendy textural tetanusy effect.

In our bedroom, there’s a groovy vintage lava lamp that a neighbour was chucking out: it gives off an unpleasant electrical-burny smell, and it trips the fuse-box every four minutes, but the safety risks are worth it for that swinging-safari wah-watusi Burt Bacharach vibe.

My rag-and-bone-man wife has created a recycled, repurposed rag-and-bone house and I’ve grown to love it. She’s given new life to all this old unwanted household junk – turned it into something beautiful and unique that we can treasure for years. About two or three years, until the borers finish it off.