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Garage Sales 2010 - Week 7
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1929
The end of May and it should be an amazing garage sale weekend.
Should be. Were it not for the snow and the rain that greeted me when I woke up.
My map, I'd drawn it up last night, Scarboro (annual parade of garage sales), another one at the Mt. Pleasant Community Center in the NW, that would be the day.
But this morning, the rain and the snow, I was pretty sure that Scarboro would call off their parade and so made my way the the Mt. Pleasant Community Center. Which was as well called off, trucks with farmers waiting in the parking lot, but the community center is locked, and there are so few cars waiting that you know it's not going to happen.
On the way back there's a large sale in front of Westworld Computers on Center St. N - I get off the bus and check it out. A few things, books, sodden in the rain and snow, videos, some new candles, a vintage camera, otherwise nothing. Volunteers staffing it, practically giving stuff away, they were hoping to capitalize on the success of the iPad, due to launch today, but it's nasty nasty out and they'll be glad to be rid of it all...
Week seven's a bust.
Tony the Gansta
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1948
He's a regular, sort of, in for lunch with his girlfriend and another couple.
He's dressed a bit like a car salesman, suit and tie, hair slicked back, his friends are odd, the guy, big, quiet, short sleeves and arms covered with Tattoos. His girlfriend is beautiful.
They eat and they talk, Tony and his wife with Tattooed guy and his girlfriend, and after a while Tony borrows the private room with Tattoo to chat. They close the door, they need the privacy.
And while Tony, he looks like a car salesman, he's not, when you approach the table you overhear what he's talking about, not the subject, but the adjectives...."He's a fuckin loser...", "Damned cunt" .... "she's a fuckin"... his vocabulary would make even a car salesman blush.
While they're in the private room the girls stop talking, they just sit in front of their phones and text away. It's a business meeting, they don't have to be social when the men aren't around.
The men, whatever they're talking about, it takes a while, half an hour, but the women are fine.
I wonder what it's like, this ganster life, Tattoo, he's got a beautiful girlfriend with a look of perpetual boredom frozen on her face, Tony isn't doing so bad either, it's probably boring, a regular job, regular customers texting and phoning at awkward hours, that drug-addled urgency, deliveries to far flung parking lots in the North East, the glamor, it's not there, you only have to see them to know, it's just a lousy job like everyone elses.
It's a $300.00 bill for lunch. They pay in cash.
A regular transit customer
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1646
He greets all the girls as they get on the bus, he's sat up near the driver, slouched, but when they board he sits up and smiles and waves and says hello.
There's something not right with him. It's late at night, I've seen him on the bus before, he must have a job downtown. There's a large scar on his forehead, his eyes go in different directions, his face looks as though he'd survived - barely - a severe automobile accident. I'm not sure if he was born this way or it was an accident.
He's alone, after he says "hi" he gets all shy and slouches over again, forefinger stuck up his nose.
He misses a girl getting on the bus, misses his greeting, and so she doesn't pick up that things aren't quite right with him and sits near the front of the bus.
Eventually he looks up, recognizes the new arrival and waves hello. "Hi" he says. "Cold outside, isn't it?". He doesn't sound slow.
"Sure is" she replies, and he gets all shy again and begins picking his nose. After a few minutes he screws up his courage to chat. "When I get home I'm going to watch Fear Friday on...." and he names a channel.
"Oh" she says, regretting now that she sat so near the front. "Do you like horror movies?"
"Love them" he replies. "They're my favorite. I love zombies and vampires and ...." and the conversation begins. The bus is quiet.
There's something unnerving about him, the ambiguity of his disability, and there's something so perfect about his favorite movie genre, the girl now, perhaps she's entertaining thoughts of him following her home as he outlines in vivid detail the gory details of his private obsession, yet it's somehow a moment that Jack Nicholson would be proud of....
Waiting...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2143
3 parcels in transit. Tibet, the US and Belgium.
Every day hurrying home after work, the one thing to look forward to... (well, that and some scotch or rum). But the mailbox is empty.
I check my confirmation emails, it's been a couple of weeks, the packages SHOULD be showing up soon...
But nothing yet. When they do it'll doubtless be 2 or three in a day, the staggered order times all log jamming together until finally they arrive all at once; the pains I took to provide small incentives each week will have been for naught.
Nothing today. But there's still tomorrow, and if nothing comes tomorrow then it wouldn't be unreasonable to have high hopes for Monday...
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