Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Thirty Days of Thankfulness, Episode Three

Today, I am grateful that I didn't die last night. Here's what happened:

Recently, my friend/my brother's girlfriend, Lia, moved to Washington DC. She owns a house in Madison, which is now on the market (anyone looking for a very cute house on the north side?). A few things needed to be taken care of, like selling some furniture on Craigslist, taking some things to Goodwill, etc. Well, one of the things that was supposed to go to Goodwill was the mattress, box spring, and bed frame. Turns out Goodwill doesn't take those. So I posted it on Freecycle, and of course I had 574 answers within the first two minutes of posting.

I arranged with the first person to respond (I wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman- all of the emails were signed "sap") to meet at the house at 6pm last night. Keep in mind that, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, it is now very dark at 6pm. Thank goodness Karl went to the house with me.

We got to the house, and we saw a minivan parked nearby with a person in the driver's seat. I knew sap was bringing a minivan, so I thought it was probably him/her. Karl and I went inside, turned on the lights, and started gathering/organizing some things Lia had asked about. A few minutes later, I got a text message from sap: "r u coming?" I wrote back: "I'm here." Sap: "(house number and street)?" Me: "Yes." I poked my head out the door to flag down sap. I saw that the minivan person (a woman with a cell phone) was getting out of the vehicle. I said, "Excuse me? Are you from Freecycle?" No answer. She walked up to a dark house on the opposite side of the street from Lia's. I started crossing the street and said loudly, "Ma'am? Ma'am? Are you from Freecycle?" No response. The woman went to the next house, where the door is kind of tucked into the side of the building, so I couldn't see her. By this time, I was across the street and into the lawn of the house where the woman was. And I was shouting, "Ma'am? Excuse me, Ma'am?" and I was thinking, What are you doing? Stop walking towards her! It's a trap; she's going to kill you!

She didn't kill me. Turns out she was deaf (I'm sorry if it's politically incorrect to say that). And then I felt guilty for thinking she was going to kill me.

So today I'm thankful that I didn't die, and that I can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel.

4 comments:

Case said...

Wait, was she SAP? If so, that just sounds a little wierd. I mean if I were deaf and wanting to pick something up I think I would email you and tell you so. not just send a nasty text - "R U coming or what"????

You and Karl are pretty nice.

Amanda said...

Yes, she was sap. And I won't go tell you how she came to pick up a full-size mattress, box spring, and frame by herself with a minivan that was too small to put the bed in. And I also won't tell you how my Freecycle posting said explicitly that whoever took the bed would need to come with enough people to load it up and a vehicle large enough to haul it. No, we won't go into those details. Grr.

Cassie said...

You are hilarious! Totally had me thinking of all the crazy law & order episodes...haha!

Linda said...

Great story..so glad you didn't die either!
Btw, I am "Tales of a Crafty Mama" 's mama!