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Garage Sales - Week 5 - 2011

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Miscellany

Published: 30 May 2011

Hits: 2015

Friday morning and it's pouring, I'm up early before work and on my way to the first stop - the Lighthouse Church in the old Women in Need on Horton Road. It promises great things, I haven't been there forever....

Outside it's a deluge, it's impossible to get motivated in this. All week, raining, pouring....

The wiper blades on the car, they're in need of replacing, have to remember this for the next servicing.

At the church, (not a church so much as a small bay) an assortment of antique tools, some electronics, tools, miscellaneous rubbish. I search, some small things, nothing big. Dealers.

Then back into the rain, home and work.

Saturday morning and the rain has stopped - there's a "parade" as part of the Richmond/Knob Hill community clean up, driving about the neighborhood at 8:00 it's not yet started, I find one, kid's stuff...

From here over to Scarboro, which is having it's annual parade of garage sales, a couple of walking sticks, picture frame, artist's palette, other small and useless treasures, it's not as good as it's been in past years - where the entire neighborhood was set up on their lawn, this year there's only a few houses and they're all several blocks apart.

And I'm missing treasures. At one, a giant stuffed pheasant perched on a log, Ju-ju dealer lady (English and covered with the sort of bad-handmade tattoos that make you think she either did them herself or did time in prison) sweeps in and picks it up for fifty cents...

I'm annoyed. 

Now, really, if I wanted or needed the stuffed pheasant I should have asked, but it's one of those things you need to think about - yes, I need it, but what for exactly...?

But now that she's purchased it I decide that I wanted it very badly, I mean, fifty cents? How do you go wrong? And I think of all the things I could have done with it. Made it a perch upon my shoulder. Or there's this waitress at work, and it would look amazing perched in her hair....

And again, another sale, electric guitar, case, stand, amp, good condition, $75.00, while I'm debating a dealer sweeps in and takes the lot for $50.00.

I'm really annoyed, not that I needed a guitar, but for the boy (and he doesn't need another one either....) - but it's the PRINCIPAL, the PRINCIPAL...

This is how the day goes, treasures stealing away from under my nose, there are some good things - furniture, coffee tables, couches, other things, good, but nothing I need or desperately want, I think - week 5 and all, that I must be getting saturated. 

And all the way home, stopping, finding things that I talk myself out of purchasing, plant pots, plastic organizers, video games, some days are like this.

This is it. Week 5 of garage saling, more or less a bust.

Porco Dio

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Conversations

Published: 30 May 2011

Hits: 2182

The owner's been in a foul mood, going off his nut without the slightest provocation, threatening to fire us all at random, screaming at the top of his lungs, it's been a few days, few weeks now, the girls suspect that it's because they've denied him groping rights, I've postulated that the bloom is off the marriage, everyone has their own theory, what matters is that he's unlivable at the moment.

The only thing that keeps me here is the lack of job security. Knowing that at any moment I could be free, it's the uncertainty, if I had to look forward to this a day, a week, month, I'd probably kill myself....

And in the kitchen he's screaming at the top of his lungs, throwing pots and pans, swearing at all and sundry who have the misfortune to be near.

Some of the tables can hear, they've been sat too near the kitchen. All of the tables could hear if they listened, most politely pretend that nothing's happening. You could be raped in the center of the dining room with a broken coke bottle and no one would see a thing, that's our customers.

A customer has a question: "What does 'Porco Dio' mean....?" she asks. I explain: "It means 'heavenly proscuitto', or 'The Ham of God'".

One of the brighter ones has another question..."What does 'Fucking Shit Fucking Son of a bitch Fucking Fuck Fuck...mean then?"

"Ah, that's a version of the Shepherds Lament, sung in Italian, and sadly most of the meaning is lost in translation...." I reply.

The On Call Story - Truth and Justice Denied

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Who's Your ISP?

Published: 30 May 2011

Hits: 2878

This a story of double dealings and abuse of monopoly by Telus. OK, the narrator is annoying as hell, but not nearly as annoying as the abuse of monopoly as executed by Telus.