the waiting room

OMG! SELLOUTZ!

Last Saturday (the flea market sale) was alright. I made about $40, although that can hardly be considered profit. I’m just trying to make some space in my room and get rid of some things.

I was mad tired on Saturday morning because I’d only gotten about three hours of sleep that night. It’s one of those times when you know you’re exhausted, but you’re wide awake? I have no idea what that’s about. I guess I get that way sometimes when I’m a little stressed out. In any case I drag myself out of bed, and switch on the television to watch one of those type of sitcoms. You know, the lame ones that Mediacorp somehow always buys only to air at weird hours of the day. Only this happened to guest star Lil’ Jon, the Eastside Boys and the Ying Yang Twins, who proceeded to perform Get Low on a family sitcom. As Dave Chappelle said, the best thing about the word skeet is that white people don’t know what it means yet. In any case, I was totally crunked up and ready to go!

No I wasn’t.

In any case, I got washed up and ready to meet Nawar in Geylang.

Yes, to rendezvous for our secret tryst.

It was the last weekend before the Geylang market got demolished and he’d wanted to take photos of the place as it was. On Saturday morning, the place was bustling and seemed almost unaware or maybe defiant at it’s inevitable fate. Unfortunately, I got there a little late and to top it off, the bag I’d thought would’ve been perfect to lug my stuff down to *scape (yes it’s a stupid name) was absurdly heavy once I’d put all my stuff in it and since it was a duffle bag of sorts (it had wheels and handles, and no the SAF did not issue it to me) it was also ridiculously cumbersome and awkward to carry. I’d brought it with me to the States previously, I thought it would be perfect. On hindsight, I think I should’ve borrowed my brother’s haversack, the one I’d used to go to Medan. Anyway, it was hardly the thing to attempt to carry with you around a crowded market. We ended up getting some landscape shots from the top floor of the nearby HDB flat. Which was fine of course. And which naturally meant that my camera’s batteries would die on me. I don’t know. I use rechargable batteries, but they take forever to charge, and then the charge lasts only for a short period of time. I mean, I guess buying another set of rechargeables might be a good idea, but I hate having my batteries die on my on such a regular basis such that I always end up buying the long life lithium batteries anyway.

In any case, we make our way to Nawar’s place in Bishan to pick up his stuff. Yeah, I had to lug around my sales items while his were sitting at home… washing their tights! Fizzie’s still at home while we’re there (sometime between 10.30 and 11am, we’d promised to meet at the site around 11) so we didn’t have to rush or anything. We took a cab down to town, but not before noticing a flyer promoting “Wu Style Taiji”, which only made me think of nine guys smoking blunts, wearing Clarks Wallabies and talking about strawberry baked zitti.

You can tell how long that day was by the fact that I haven’t even gotten to the actual sale yet considering how long I’ve been rambling.

We make it down to Orchard Cineleisure in one piece, and I discover the fact that the building actually has a taxi stand. It’s outside the Cheers, on the side of the building facing the Meritus Mandarin Hotel. You learn something new everyday. While carrying my bag to *scape the strap of my bag, which I’d been using to carry it, snapped. Right there in front of Orchard Cineleisure. Now while it was only a few metres to the actual flea market space, the consequences of this would only be apparent later.

The main points very quickly now…

Two huge gay guys came and bought the smallest shirts I had on sale. Seriously, they had muscles on top of muscles and they were looking for the smallest t-shirts they could find. I mean, I start putting on weight and I decided to get rid of those tees becaue I was worried they were too tight. They also complained about the quality of the t-shirts, saying we’d picked them up from the trash. Hey man, we’re getting rid of them. You’re the one who’s interested in the shirts.

There were dudes who were apparently selling pool tables. Seriously. They set up a pool table at their spot and basically got people to play all day.

The annoying Teen model search double decker bus, which came around at least three times, with a bunch of kids making a hella lotta noise trying to get people to notice them. Their last time around I shouted “Show us your tits” at them. Either they didn’t hear me or they just didn’t comply. Which I guess was alright since half of them were guys.

Wicked Aura Batucada practicing at the Youth Park. Trying to subtly (not really) manipulate people into buying our stuff by coming up with lyrics like the hugely imaginative “buy our shit” chant.

As everybody started packing up in the last hour, suddenly sales picked up. And from a bunch of people who’d been to our stall earlier in the day too.

Meeting Derrick from TMS and OEPS at my stall. He was looking for guitar notations. That was a bit of a surprise, although I guess we didn’t really have anything to say to each other at this point.

C level celebrity walked around the area with video cameras following her and pretended to care about what everybody was selling. Apparently she sang the Mandarin version of the Numa Numa song (you know, the Chicken Little one). She was in the New Paper a few days back.

After the sale was over, I had to drag the bag, full of unsold stuff from Orchard Cineleisure to Far East Plaza, where we (that’s me, Fizzie, Nawar and his girl) had dinner. Bearing in mind that the strap had broken, I had to alternate between carrying it by the handles under my arms, or pulling it by its wheels. You’d think the wheels would make the pulling easier. You’d be wrong. I was dead tired and horribly sweaty by the process, and my shoulder’s felt like they were about ready to disconnect from my body.

Sold off:
Starter American Football jersey
Beatles all over print t-shirt
Plain black Bayside tee
Bayside red/white ringer tee
Kanye West - College Dropout CD
The Best Hip-Hop Anthems in the World… Ever! CD
Kerrang! sampler CD
Live - Secret Samadhi CD
Jamiroquai - Travelling without Moving CD
Weird stoner shirt I’d bought at Far East Plaza that nobody else seemed to like
Black/ White baseball raglan tee

The CDs and the comics didn’t sell particularly well, and nobody really wanted the jeans I had up for sale. Other than that, it was quite fun. I got to spend the day with my friends and people watch, and clear my room.

Update later today hopefully. Peace.

Subscribe to the comments for this post