Got something you don’t want anymore? Bet a Trading Time listener will take it.

When our microwave died, I put in the garage and figured it would sit there about a year before I dragged it to the dump. But less than two weeks later, I heard a man on a local radio show who wanted it.

That was cool.

Jay, left, and Alice hosting Trading Time with me listening in.

The show is called Trading Time, a Mendocino County original that airs on KZYX&Z every Saturday morning at 11 a.m. When I first moved to Ukiah several years ago, I wondered why anyone would ever willingly listen to it. Now I never miss it. 

Which is why two Saturdays after the little motor that rotated the glass plate inside our microwave died a fiery death, I heard a man announcing that he was looking for microwaves, working or not, because he wanted to use their parts.

So I called him. “How much do you want for it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “You’re saving me from taking it to the dump. You can have it.”

My husband didn’t want me to call microwave man. He didn’t think it was possible that some stranger would come to our house, pick up the microwave, and then both would disappear from our lives forever.

But I had listened to Trading Time enough to get a feel for the type of people who called in. And I had a feeling that this man would do what he said.

And he did. I gave him our address and told him I’d leave the microwave in the front yard when I went to work. When I came home that day, the microwave was gone. And I never heard from microwave man again.

So, got something you don’t want anymore? Call Trading Time. I’ll bet someone who listens does.

Read more about how the show started and some of its former hosts in this Ukiah Daily Journal story: “The weird, wonderful world of Trading Time.”

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