Laundryroom Swapmeet

That’s a pillow.  It’s red and sort of mottled with a sort of goldish leafy organic patter on it.  I’m guess it was left on the table because someone had given up sleeping.  That is probably not a very accurate guess.

I feel kind of awful about not updating the swapmeet.  Fact is, I’ve been distracted by some other web stuff (e.g. my new Q&A project Big Big Question, which you should, incidentally, check out), and some recurring technical difficulties a while back really took the wind out of my sales regardless.  Also, further excuses A, B, and C.

And now we come to a strange place: I have a small backlog of remain photos from a while back, but that’s not enough to really keep this place going, because something fundamental has happened:

The swapmeet table is gone.  New building manager is pretty anti-swapmeet, apparently.  So it is gone.  Adios.  No more table — and folks have pretty much done no dropping of stuff on the ground where the table used to be, which practically speaking probably just means they’re respecting the anti-swapmeet directive, but I prefer to think that it reveals a sort of magic contained in the swapmeet table itself.

I feel absurd about this, but it’s making me a little sad just to write about it.

So I don’t know what this means for the site.  It’s been seven months since an update as is, with a string of prior gaps before that, and it looks like gap city up ahead unless something changes.

Hey there!  You know what’s been kind of bugging me about the ol’ Swapmeet (other than that me-not-updating-it thing)?

Everything is out of date!  You might not realize this, but most of the photos that have been posted since, like August?  Were taken back in August.  There was a real big pile of action down on the swapmeet table around then, and as a result I got a lot of pictures.  And since I was doing one item at a time, those pictures lasted a long dang time.

As a matter of fact, I still have a backlog.  And it’s been killing my morale, and that’s just about enough of that.

So to heck with that!  Let’s jump to the present, dump the one-item-per-entry thing, and just see what’s going on in the laundry room, goddammit!  Are you ready?  Yes!  You are totally ready!  Let’s go!

Two decorative christmas-y wine glasses, and a small metal frying pan with a wooden handle!  These showed up independent of each other, I think, but they’ve been hanging out together down there for a few days now; seems like no one wants either.

Consider that those are not particularly over-sized glasses: that is one tiny little frying pan.  I’m thinking a dwarf got his second growth and is upsizing.

Detail shot of the pan.  I kind of feel like mocking its smallness and crappiness is the clear path, but for some reason I find the handle on this thing just plain charming.  And that little metal hook or loop or whatever you want to call it, on the end there?  I don’t know if it came standard or got customed in by the dwarf or what, but I like it.  Very rustic utilitarian.

Maybe it’s not a dwarf at all.  Maybe it’s a giant descendent of William Burroughs, and this is the belt-loop spoon he keeps around for cooking up–but he’s kicking, man, he’s kicking that dang old giant-sized horse and he doesn’t need this stuff anymore.  If a hypodermic the size of a turkey baster shows up, I’m going to consider it a closed case.

Ho ho ho!  It’s frickin August, okay?  Nobody wants a glass with christmas trees and snow on it.  It’s like stopping at a news stand in the middle of the Sahara and picking up a copy of Water Monthly.  No.  No thank you.  These glasses are going to sit on the table until at least Thanskgiving, if someone doesn’t destroy them in a fit of heat exhaustion first.

Oprah is just fucking thrilled to be Oprah.  In the mean time, Andre Agassi is just happy to be on a magazine cover.  You know what I miss?  The mullet.  That dang mullet.  That was a rebel, Andre.  That guy, over there, who you used to be.

And this happy crowd?  This is me giving back to the swapmeet.  We cleaned out the cleaning supplies last weekend; this is all the stuff we just don’t use.  The iron is fine, but we got a new one; the detergent is fine except it smells way too much.  (I put signs on both of those, since either could be conceivably mistaken for non-swapmeet laundry paraphernalia.) 

The spray bottles were occupying niches we just didn’t need filled; and I don’t need those Clorox things because I live in a state of constant, willful filth and it’d be kind of antithetical to have it around.

And what about that speckled-out blob in front of it all?  What, indeed!  Introducting a new feature: What the Hell is That?

The way WtHiT works is, I don’t tell you what it is.  And you’re all “What the hell is that?”  And I’m all, “nuh uh, not telling.”  And you’re all, “wait, I bet I totally know.”  And I’m all like, “yeah, well, leave a comment or something then, smart-face.”

Aaaaaaaaaaand scene.  There’s your first big old round-up digest-type post.  It’s a change–end of an era and all that, I know, break out the kleenex–but if it’s one of these every weekish or so vs. the old style with months-long breaks, I’m kinda leaning toward this.  Let me know what you think, natch.

Item:

A clear plastic box of potpourri with Target “HOME” branding on it. 

Why It’s Here:

There’s a couple on the fifth floor of the building; he’s Protestant, she’s areligious.  They love each other dearly, but he has such a temper when he reads the newspaper that she’s walking on eggshells some evenings just to avoid the insult shrapnel as he chews his way through the International section.

One recent evening, enraged as he was by news of recent Vatican declarations re: demoninational waywardness and the primacy of the Church, he could not contain himself and was heard to cry out:  “Goddam Popery!”

She misunderstood, saw this sitting unopened on the table, and dashed it down to the laundryroom in a panic.

Probable Recipient:

Rome, if someone doesn’t stand up to ‘em.  Opus Dei, amirite?

And now for some self-promotion:

I’ve recently started doing a new project.  It’s a sort of absurdist web comic made from baseball cards, but it’s not really about baseball, and it’s honestly pretty hard to explain so you should just go check it out.  It’s called bunt cake, and if you enjoy reading the swapmeet you’re probably the sort of weirdo who will get what I’m trying to do over there.  And I mean that very warmly.

Item:

The World’s Most Beautiful Jigsaw Puzzle, dolphin edition.

Why It’s Here:

Because it was just.  too.  beautiful.  Too much to behold, too much to fathom; the dolphins glistened so brightly, the airbrushed waves swayed preternaturally even in the dim tungsten light of the previous owner’s studio apartment.

Whole, it taunted them with its beauty: and so they broke it into a thousand pieces!  But shame overcame them, and so they created this box, as both house and explanation, confession and container, and left it in the laundry room for another, stronger soul to piece back together.

Probable Recipient:

Some old lady with too much time on her hands.

And the thing is:

that you just know it’s missing like three pieces, but you don’t want to sit down and count out the pieces one by one ahead of time—a thousand of them!—and so you just try to put the damn thing together, and all the while it’s there in the back of your mind, itching at you: there’s going to be a piece missing.  There’s going to be a piece missing.

Item:

A framed print of a painting of a bored (or possibly wistful) angel.

Why It’s Here:

Previous owner got sick of all the eye rolling.  “Damn you,” he said to the painting, “why can’t you just give me a straight answer for once?  Just tell me!  Tell me!  Do these pants, or do they not, make me look fat and oh don’t you roll your eyes at me you chubby little son of a—”

Probable Recipient:

Local budding Christian Bebop artist Cherub Checkers, pen behind the recent godpop hit “Do the Twist (in His Name)”.

Fats Domino, Chubby Checkers:

These are names that would just not fly these days.  Alternative Bodystyle Backgammon, maybe, but don’t push your luck.

Item:

A black molded-plastic bucket chair.

Why It’s Here:

Remember the episode of Seinfeld, where George talks to a security guard in a store and asks if he gets tired of standing all day, and they sort of discuss the relative merits of sitting versus standing, and then George ends up buying the guy a stool and the guy nods off and hijinks ensue?

I think this is sort of like that except without the guard or the store or George Costanza.

Probable Recipient:

The new laundry room security guard that we might get if we decided to get a security guard for the laundry room for some reason.

I’ve been dying of the flu:

and that’s why I didn’t update the last couple days.  I’m feeling a bit better now, and also intensely (read: “very mildly”) guilty about my first failure to update since 2007 got kicking.  Mea culpa.  Mea maxima culpa.

Item:

A bottle of Holiday Shimmer, uh, stuff. “Cucumber Melon” flavor.

Why It’s Here:

Prior owner couldn’t tell what this stuff was for.  Is it shampoo?  Body wash?  Hair cream?  It has sort of a viscous look to it in the photo, but isn’t that a hairspray nozzle at the top?

It looks like some wacky mutant freak toiletry, to me.  I should probably ask my wife.

Probable Recipient:

A girl. Just—I’m just putting it out there.  Okay?

Cucumber Melon Body Stuff:

Because your skin and/or hair deserves a mix of fruits and vegetables.

Item:

A hand-painted sign that says “TiKi BAR” in yellow paint.  There’s black fabric piping around the edges of the words.

Why It’s Here:

The tiki bar closed down. 

Probable Recipient:

Whoever re-opens the tiki bar. 

Why did the tiki bar cross the tiki bar?

To get to the other tiki bar.

Item:

A shiny brushed-metal desk lamp with a spiral-tubing base.

Why It’s Here:

I’ve noticed that we see a lot of lamps at the swapmeet [uno, dos, tres].  And what do we do when we have a trend?

We make up a theory! 

Swapmeet Lamp Theorem: lamps are more consistently swappable than any other furnishing, according to three factors:

1. They are inexpensive enough to get rid of casually
2. They are small enough to carry down to the swapmeet table
3. They are useful enough to not just throw away

That’s it right there.  That’s the real stuff, folks.  Science in action.

Probable Recipient:

Someone looking to spruce up their grow-op.

I think it would be funny:

to convince some unsuspecting entrepreneur/marketeer that “grow-op” is actually just industry short-hand for “growth opportunity”.  Get them to start using it in business pitches and stuff.

“Yes sir, Tom, this a real money-making opportunity.  Get in on the ground floor, my friend, because I’m talking about a genuine grow-op!  I’m talking ab—what?  Whassamatter?”

Item:

A bag of used miniature christmas light strings, including a baggie of spare bulbs.

Why It’s Here:

Why is it here in October, particularly—Christmas is either several months away or even severaler months past!  I suppose someone could be thinking that someone else is planning ahead, but that’s crazy talk.

Probable Recipient:

Someone who is planning ahead.

And that:

is crazy talk.