Planet Claire
She left this message on my voice mail yesterday, "Hi, my name is Claire. I'm calling about the table you have for sale on the Internet," and she left her number, so this morning I called her back.
"Hello, is this Claire?"
"Yes." She sounded like the phone had woken her up.
"I'm returning your call, about the table."
"Oh!" Now she was becoming more alert. "I forgot; can you tell me what it looks like?"
I'd posted a detailed description on Craigslist, so I began to reel it off again, "It's what you might call "vintage" Ikea. It's black and white and..."
"Can you send me some pictures?" Claire asked.
"No, sorry, I don't have a digital camera." Or I'd have posted them in the first place. "You're welcome to come and see it."
"Where are you, again?"
"Down by the lake, near the Exhibition." Like it said in the posting.
"Oh. Well, I'm in Brampton. I don't have a car, or anything."
"I see," I replied, though clearly I didn't.
"How big is it?" she was asking now, and since she sounded, to me, at least, like she was really interested in the vintage Ikeaness of my table, I described it as enthusiastically as I could, and even told her the story of how I'd had to call all over the country to find this last one, back in the 1980s. It's a cool table. It folds up so it takes up only eight inches of space against the wall. I adored it for 15 years, and now I'm sick to death of the sight of it.
"How much do you want for it?" Claire asked, though this information was also in my posting.
"A hundred and fifty," I replied, though I was willing to be talked down to a hundred, "And I'll throw in the four chairs for free. It's in perfect condition, it's vintage Ikea, and it cost almost three times that much originally."
I must be spending too much time on eBay. I can't seem to speak a sentence these days without saying the word vintage.
"Oh, I don't have any money," said Claire. "I was talking to another woman last night; she had this other table for sale, and she wanted $75. But I don't have $75, even. I can't afford to pay my insurance right now, and I have my baby to look after."
As if on cue, I hear a baby crying in the background.
"Oh, that's too bad," I say, trying to sound more sympathetic than confused.
"All my furniture is so old, I couldn't sell it even if I wanted to. It's so bad no one'd even want it for free. I have a pink leather sofa that used to be nice but now it has two big holes in the cushions."
"Mmn. Hmn."
"My cockatoo chewed it."
"Hello, is this Claire?"
"Yes." She sounded like the phone had woken her up.
"I'm returning your call, about the table."
"Oh!" Now she was becoming more alert. "I forgot; can you tell me what it looks like?"
I'd posted a detailed description on Craigslist, so I began to reel it off again, "It's what you might call "vintage" Ikea. It's black and white and..."
"Can you send me some pictures?" Claire asked.
"No, sorry, I don't have a digital camera." Or I'd have posted them in the first place. "You're welcome to come and see it."
"Where are you, again?"
"Down by the lake, near the Exhibition." Like it said in the posting.
"Oh. Well, I'm in Brampton. I don't have a car, or anything."
"I see," I replied, though clearly I didn't.
"How big is it?" she was asking now, and since she sounded, to me, at least, like she was really interested in the vintage Ikeaness of my table, I described it as enthusiastically as I could, and even told her the story of how I'd had to call all over the country to find this last one, back in the 1980s. It's a cool table. It folds up so it takes up only eight inches of space against the wall. I adored it for 15 years, and now I'm sick to death of the sight of it.
"How much do you want for it?" Claire asked, though this information was also in my posting.
"A hundred and fifty," I replied, though I was willing to be talked down to a hundred, "And I'll throw in the four chairs for free. It's in perfect condition, it's vintage Ikea, and it cost almost three times that much originally."
I must be spending too much time on eBay. I can't seem to speak a sentence these days without saying the word vintage.
"Oh, I don't have any money," said Claire. "I was talking to another woman last night; she had this other table for sale, and she wanted $75. But I don't have $75, even. I can't afford to pay my insurance right now, and I have my baby to look after."
As if on cue, I hear a baby crying in the background.
"Oh, that's too bad," I say, trying to sound more sympathetic than confused.
"All my furniture is so old, I couldn't sell it even if I wanted to. It's so bad no one'd even want it for free. I have a pink leather sofa that used to be nice but now it has two big holes in the cushions."
"Mmn. Hmn."
"My cockatoo chewed it."
10 Comments:
Dude, the random wrongness of some people...did she ever have a point, or were you just a victim of her desperate desire to converse with someone over the age of one who could do more than just rip holes in leather and repeat random phrases?
She can't afford to pay insurance and she's shopping Craigslist for replacement tables? Ah... priorities...
How exactly did she plan to pick up the table if she can't find a way to get out there to look at it?
Freak.
Two posts in a row named after song titles? Do you have a third on its way?
Andrew.
Um, Andrew, all my stories are song titles. Or song lyrics.
And now Andrew knows the other reason they call her Sass. ;)
She sounds pathetic.
I am continually amazed that some people are capable of the higher level functions necessary to even use the Internet.
Or for that matter, the phone.
I love how you and I both use songs titles/lyrics as post titles. Been doing it since July of last year.
I've been doing it from the very beginning. In fact, it's not that I decided to write a blog and then though, hmn, I'll use song lyrics, but rather that listening to songs inspired me to write stories. "Hast du etwas zeit für mich," the title of my first story, is the opening sentence of 99 Luftballoons, by Nena. The German, or, as I prefer to think of it, karaoke, version. It means "Do you have some time for me?"
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