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March 15, 2005
Moving Magazines
When I went out to my car this morning I noticed Howard Hughes, the crazy guy across the street that has yard sales where he tries to sell one hat, had furniture scattered out on the sidewalk in front of his house. That's odd I thought, and kept looking as I walked over to my car.
I noticed a sign that read, "Everything Free. Help Yourself" just before I noticed a stack of records. Free records? Wow. So I ran over and sorted through the stack. Something inside me felt a little guilty about taking old records from the crazy guy that hasn't had gas or electricity for over 7 years now; maybe that's why something else inside forced me to hurry as I did it.
And it almost worked. But just as I reached the last record he stuck his head out the door. "Help yourself. Yep. Go ahead. Free. I'm selling the house today."
"Today, huh?" Yeah, right. He's had a for sale sign in the window before, but he hasn't had one there for months. Besides, he's asking way too much for the house [$42,000].
In fact, back when he had a sign in the window trying to sell the house I went in to see if it was worth buying. I had to take off work early because I needed daylight to see what the inside was like. Even though I came home early I really didn't get a good look at the house because it took the realtor half an hour to unlock the door. "The other agent said it was tricky -- that I'd have to turn the key and then hit the top of the door, then throw a hip into it -- but this is ridiculous."
When we finally got in I wasn't able to see much, but I did see bicycles. There were at least three bike frames in almost every room and dozens in the basement. The only rooms that didn't have nikes in them were the bathroom and the master bedroom. There really wasn't room for a bicycle in the bedroom though. It was filled with a large bed, a cot and porno.
The man was easily in his 60s -- he moved into the house when he retired -- still his house was filled with pornos. Every square inch of his bedroom walls were covered with centerfolds. There were stacks of magazines scattered around the room.
Even now, when he patched up one of his windows with plywood he did it with plywood covered with centerfolds. There is at least one naked lady staring at all the neighborhood boys that decided to walk through his back alley.
"Yep. Gotta get rid of the stuff. They're coming to sign the papers this afternoon. Sometimes deals fall through, but I feel pretty good about this one."
Wow. He seems to make sense. Maybe it's true. Now I don't feel so bad about taking the records. I looked down at the last couple to see if they needed to come live at my house. Oooh. Dvorak.
"Hey. Do you need some magazines?" He must have gone inside when I had my head down looking at the last couple records.
"What?"
"Do you need any?" He held out a stack of old porno magazines.
"No thanks."
"You sure?"
"Oh, yeah. I've already got a big stack at home."
"Oh, yeah. OK."
I had a similar problem once when I was moving. The movers would move up to a certain weight, above that I would have to pay extra. So I roughly prioritized my stuff, and when they told me I was nearing my weight limit I decided that glossy magazine paper was heavier than it was worth and I offered it to the movers.
None of the movers wanted the stuff. I figured it was because they were too embarrassed to be seen taking it. So I made a plea to their sense of family. "Come on you guys. Don't any of you have sons that would enjoy this stuff?"
Still nobody took the magazines.
I was stuck with them.
So I did what I hoped, as a kid, every guy would have done with his excess pornos. I tied them in a bundle and left them on top of my garbage can for everyone to see and anyone to take.
Posted by calculatoronfire at March 15, 2005 7:15 PM