For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn

Anyone need a raspberry bidet? The kind you get at a secondhand store:This and more to be found in the amazing “free” section of Craigslist. I stumbled on the pile of gems that is the “free” section a few months ago looking for a “new” dresser for Sweetheart. With some judicious browsing and a few e-mails, we found ourselves in a deserted hallway in an elevator building on East 12th street, picking up a beat up but lovely and manly mahogany bow front dresser, the drawers of which were inexplicably filled with glitter. FOR FREE. Even though (goodness knows) I don’t need any more stuff, I find myself drawn to peruse the “free” section every two weeks or so just to trawl around and see what’s there.

Just like Papa Hemingway’s famous flash story (“for sale: baby shoes, never worn”), the listings sometimes tell just the edge of a story, as in “wedding dress, brand new, never got used”. Or sometimes there’s a big old chunk of history there behind the words of the listing, as in “FREE wood joists that were just ripped up from the coney island boardwalk”:Then there are listings for things you see over and over: “Big Screen TV still WORKS! Needs two to lift”, “FREE Couch, making room for crib”, “IKEA (insert name of any item ever sold at Ikea), some scratches, may need to be disassembled, 5th floor walkup”. Toss in listings for free haircuts, free tatoos, free dirt, free comedy, free boats, free shoes, free oil, free puppies, or FREE ONE PASS FOR A HIPHOP LATINO SHOW CASE OPEN MIC IN MANHATTAN and the “Free” section becomes like the flashing repeating reel version of life that gleams from the windows of subway trains passing each other underground. Go look, don’t cost nothin.

Author: loiseaufait

Little by little the bird feathers its nest, and object by heart burnished object we surround ourselves with lovely necessities of memory and function. It is these things that make a silly Apartment a Home or a silly Wednesday an Occasion. Whether my nest is an old farmhouse, a sixth floor tenement walk up, or a brownstone basement... whether I share it with family, vagabonds, women of heart and mind, or a little brown cat and a sweet ginger banjo, my principal joy is filling it with light and laughter (and corralling). View all posts by loiseaufait