Across the street and a half-block down is a little apartment house on Packard that has been occupied by perfectly nice, perfectly quiet UM football players. Although they sometimes have beer parties in the yard, generally they are friendly, clean and about as good as it gets in terms of undergraduate student neighbors. I bought my scooter from one of them a year ago - an awesome retro 49 cc Yamaha Vino - which came about purely by accident: I answered his Craig's List ad and it turned out we were neighbors. Because of that, I've realized that he has a little business buying and selling scooters. I frequently see young men taking test drives up and down our street: 250-pound clean-cut guys with athletic builds driving around the block on tiny mopeds, their knees up around their ears. Generally the guys wear shorts, flip-flops and no helmets. I guess football players are invincible.
Well, these perfectly nice football players moved out on Sunday. For students, they seem to have a lot of stuff, because they had two pretty sizable U-Hauls parked on the street. One thing they didn't take with them: a 50" Sony projection TV on a built-in stand. Instead, they put the thing on the corner with two signs taped to it: one says "Free" and the other says "Works."
Well, Sam laid eyes on this 50" Sony projection TV and his eyes lit up like Christmas lights. He was thinking of his brand-new huge bedroom, and the loveseat he'd like to put in there between the two big windows, and how awesome it would be to play X-Box with his buddies while sitting on the imagined loveseat. On this free, working 50" Sony projection TV with a built-in stand.
Well, is it a bad thing when a mother loves her son so much she wants to say "Yes"? In this case, yes. Yes, it's a bad thing. Not, yes, this TV is a good idea.
We tried it. We used a sturdy luggage rack, him pulling, me guiding. We got it all the way across the street. I was groaning a bit, although you couldn't hear it above the traffic noise. By the time we got across the street with it, I had decided that thing was never going to enter my house. It probably wouldn't fit through the front door, and it certainly wouldn't fit up the stairs. And Sam is only going to be living here for two more years.
Sam took the bad news with equanimity. We deposited the TV on a different corner, adjusted the signs ("Free!" "Works!") so they would be visible from Packard, and headed back home.
The next morning, the TV was on my front porch. Thanks, guys!
The good news: I advertised it ("Free!" "Works!") on Craig's List. So far, three takers. If Maurita no-shows tomorrow, I've got two more suckers in my back pocket, ready to stop by on Saturday.
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