SALE

With the Big Move scheduled for Sunday and with all the junk I’ve turned up in my cleaning and all the furniture I failed to sell on Craig’s List, I’ve scheduled my first-ever garage sale for tomorrow morning. Yikes. I posted about it on Craig’s List, and already I’m getting emails from the eBay vultures looking for an advance peek at my CDs and DVDs. I hope they show up tomorrow just to learn that the only CDs I’m selling are ones the Wherehouse won’t accept because they have too many copies of them already. Jesus Jones is like styrofoam. Once it’s served its purpose, you don’t really need it, but you can’t recycle it. We need a landfill specifically for them and Del Amitri, too.

Among the things I’m selling:

My guitar. This is the one thing I own that’s spent more time in the closet than I have. I bought it when I first moved out here, thinking, “I should learn to play guitar.” I answered an ad in the Recycler and ended up in the apartment of a college kid in Santa Monica. He was selling it for $60, and he clearly needed the money badly. Prying the guitar from his hands made me feel like the Nazis in Sophie’s Choice. His supportive roommate was sitting by his side, helping him to let go. Like a jerk, I tried to talk him down to $40. He said no. The fact that I used his beloved instrument for about a week before I got bored with it, then hid it away for nine years makes me feel like even more of a jerk. I figure I’ll ask $25 for it.

Renee Spearman and the Prosperity Crusade Choir. I bought this CD after a gospel brunch at the House of Blues. They were a good choir. (Their version of “Oh, How I Love Him” was a highlight of the brunch. Sadly, it was not on the CD.) And I guess I figured some honest-to-goodness “blah blah blah Jesus” gospel would be a nice counterpoint to the rest of my collection. I maybe listened to it one time. Liked the blah blah blah, but not the Jesus. Bought it for $17, selling it for a buck.

Ugly Metal Folding Chairs. My old roommate bought these one day with the joint apartment fund. I think he spent $20 on them at Target, and I was furious. He said they’d be good if we had company over. I said, “Yeah, if we’re hosting an assembly for fourth-graders.” Somehow when we went our separate ways and split up the common goods, I ended up with these. I’ve never had anywhere to store them, and they’ve sat in the corner collecting dust in two separate apartments now, never ever used. I think I’ll sell the whole set for $5. And if nobody buys them, I’ll HURL them in the trash.

Knives. When I first moved out here, my parents gave me a bunch of stuff to get me started. Among this stuff were about 25 extremely sharp knives. Many of them are rusty. I don’t know what (or who) they thought I’d be cutting up, or maybe they thought my Sociology degree wouldn’t leave me qualified to do much more than become a butcher or circus performer. I’ve kept these knives under my sink in the same paper bag I used to transport them out here. Keeping knives in a paper bag is about as smart as giving your son this many knives in the first place. I think Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents learned the same lesson, only the hard way. Price: probably a dollar each. And that’s a bargain any way you slice it. (Those knife jokes, they slay me.)

Some sort of leather strap. Much of the stuff I’m selling has some kind of memory attached to it. Some of it is difficult to part with. Then there’s stuff like this. I have no idea what the hell this is or where it came from. It has a ring on the end of it, so I think it’s intended to be used as a keychain. It came in a fancy box, so I think it was a gift. It has a pricetag on it, but the price has been torn off. My price: 25 cents.

The People vs. Larry Flynt: Screenplay. I only bought this because the writers were speaking at Borders and autographing them. I thought the movie (like all their movies) was just so-so, but I got caught up in the moment. I wanted the cute one to sign it, but instead, I got the other guy. He wrote “Jerry: Free speech ain’t cheap!” In theory, I still support any event that makes writers feel like celebrities whose autographs are worth something. I guess I’ll ask $2 for this.

Drew’s TV. Drew has two TVs. I have two TVs. Two TVs for one person living alone may be a bit excessive, but four TVs for two people kinda makes you the weird TV couple. With picture-in-picture, we could watch eight channels at once. Just the fact that I even thought about that makes me realize how important it is for us to jettison at least one TV. I don’t know what Drew’s asking for this, but probably about $50.

Gettysburg on VHS. An old boyfriend loaned it to me against my wishes, claiming it was one of his favorite movies and I guess that it would be good for me or something. Of course, I never watched it. It’s a period piece, it’s a TV movie, Parker Posey is nowhere near it. I mean, really. Who would think I’d like something like that? After we broke up, I offered to give it back to him. He told me he’d rather have me throw it out than see me again. I’m asking three dollars for it, which is what I would’ve paid for postage. (He also “loaned” me “Harold and Maude”, which I’m keeping.)

Dining Table and Chair. Adam sold this to me when he moved to New York. I don’t know why there’s only one chair, but that’s all I needed at the time. I hope I sell this late in the day, because that’s what I’m putting all the other stuff on. I don’t want to put anything on the ground. Who would buy stuff that’s been on the ground? Ants crawl there. Dogs poo there. Phooey on the ground. For both table and chair: $25.

Q*bert watch. I wanted this so badly when I saw it on eBay. Of course it’s a piece of junk and it plays nothing like the arcade game. But that’s not the point. Wearing a Q*bert watch lets everyone who asks you what time it is know how much you like Q*bert. I guess I grew to resent those no-watch people more than I liked to show off my love of Q*bert. Don’t mooch off my time-awareness, people. I mean, either learn to live with not knowing what time it is or get your own damn watch already. Perhaps I could interest you in a wonderful Q*bert watch! For you? $3.