Singer Sewing Machine

In my garage is the now broken down Singer Sewing Machine table. You likely know these well, they lurk in the corners of many homes for reasons only slightly unique to each owner. Mine is a hand me down from my great aunt another one of the antique items acquired through the Wood Furniture refugee program p-man and I have run since our early 20's. We never met a piece of wood furniture that we could let go to goodwill; not even the ones we really don't need.**

So, I had the treadle sewing machine. About 8 years ago I also had a super cute blueberry iMac, one of those first generation thingys. I thought the sewing machine cabinet would be perfect as a computer desk. I got some keyboard glides and did a conversion. After numerous arguments with my Dad about how I should be doing it I got it done. Out came that machine and on went my new INTERNET machine. I wrote my Masters at that desk, my first website, I trafficked in serious amounts of email and got ready to blog from there, I figure.

I thought about it then -- and still -- how I didn't convert much. The easy transition 19th century sewing machine for 21st century portal; a machine that enables, a new opportunity for independence and intention. I felt the connection over time to my aunties and grandmas who worked at the many many identical veneer table tops night and day. I expected the time they would have spent at that appliance would have been quite comparable to the time I spend at the interface, but who knows. I feel still some romance for this now broken down symbol of womanly enterprise, its resonance of solitary exertions with bounteous outcomes.

P-man observed the table's surplus status in the recent inventory of the wooden unpurposed we shelter. He thinks we should get rid of it. It's true I could get rid of it now but part of me really hopes we don't actually know how to throw out furniture.

**I have always wanted to take the tv parts out of our antique tv set and put in a goldfish aquarium.

Warning: These Are Not Real Problems

Mo and I are trying to give away free items on Craigslist. The following are the key words from the preceding sentence: GIVE. FREE. We are not attempting to part with nasty little things, like a Mason jar full of snot, or year-old pizza. The items in question are an older chest-type deep freeze and a love-seat size fold a bed both of which function and neither of which has suffered cruel or unusual treatment.

But can we give this shit away? Noooo! We advertised on Craigslist and were deluged with responses. The ads included photos of the FREE items so no needless questions would arise as to the colour, condition, or quality of the FREE items would arise at the time of collection. We called back a few of the respondents and arranged with a number of them to collect the FREE (as seen on the computer!) items from our garage.

Sofa Lady arrived first. She drove here from New Westminster. She did not take the FREE sofa. It was the wrong colour.

The Young Couple came later, all the way from intermarried Port Coquitlam, for the freezer. They asked: Is it Powersmart? They did not take the FREE freezer because it is old.

Mo then arranged with another person, obviously unconcerned about the environment, to collect the FREE freezer. He failed to attend at the appointed time or at all.

Thus I am compelled to say to you, dear Craigslist readers: You are a bunch of pricks.

You wouldn't know this, since it was not in the ad, but we have two young kids who require a significant portion of our time and energy. While the FREE items do not hold any monetary value for us, we do value our time together, and are inclined to spend it on pursuits other than waiting for you to come over, inspect our FREE stuff on our time, and then explain to us why it is not good enough for you. Here is a detail you have obviously not considered, in addition to the previous two... these things are FREE! What the fuck are you expecting? A Louis XIV chaise longue? If so, perhaps you should go to the Craigslist pages for Versailles.

So you see, I have enough things to do to fill my time without waiting for or listening to you. I also have two cats. One or both of these cats has decided recently to eschew the litter box for the non-clumping and forbidden pleasures of our area carpets. Here's another little morsel of information for you: Cat shit does not show up well on a Persian rug. Also, cat shit, particularly the ill-formed or loosened variety, feels quite disgusting when you step on it bare-footed. So you see, we need to stay on our toes around here. There's a lot of spot cleaning going on. And foot cleaning. Being angered and disgusted by cats is time-consuming. We do not have the time to work in your dumbassery around here.

In conclusion I say this to you, oh fickle readers of Craigslist: You are too fucking choosy for your own good. I am not calling you beggars, far from it, I'm just saying I have a problem with the degree of expectation you bring to transactions which involve me giving you FREE stuff which you do not have to pay for because it is FREE and I am happy to GIVE it to you. Go find the brand-new FREE freezer, or the sofa done in just the right shade of ecru... I am sure they are lodging together in a carport in Whalley. Fucknuts.


Best regards,

p-man.

Can-Am Games

My daughter is such an emerging North American. Instead of saying either couch or chesterfield she stubbornly insists on calling it the coucherfield. Cute, huh?

Now I am off to blogland to distribute some 100 or so comments I am running behind on. I'll be e'ing you.