My Name is Earl...

I'm now sharing a two bedroom unit with someone, so obviously we have lots of extra crap. The other day we decided to sell some of it at a second hand store. So Kel and I are in Cash Converters, with a stereo, two pairs of roller blades and a wheelie clothes hanger thing on the counter.

A cross eyed guy at the counter looked them over. "I can give you $40," he said, looking over my left shoulder.

"Ummm..." I replied.

There was a weird looking gay guy (ok, he didn't tell me he was gay, but he had christmas sticky tape around a couple of fingers) fiddling in the background. His rendition of 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' made me nervous. (sorry, had to say that).

"How about $50?" I ventured, unconsciously shifting to my left.

The cross eyed guy tapped away at the computer for a second while the gay guy fiddled some more. "$45 is the best I can do."

Another customer walked inand started organising something with the gay guy. Might have been something to do with a golden fiddle, but I'm not sure.

Kel and I accepted the offer and cross eyed guy started on the computer again. And we stood there waiting while he's tapping away.

And while we wait, the other customer has a look at the stereo and says, "How much are they offering you for that?"

"$45 for the lot," I told him.

"Does the stereo work?"

"Yes. Crossed-eyed guy just tested it." And it did work. The fact that it had seven watt speakers and a four button remote control didn't come up.

"I'll give you $40 for the stereo."

"Ummm..." I hesitated because I could understand that the cash converters guys might be offended by this conversation.

"$40 for the stereo," the guy says again.

"Ummm..."

"You'll have to make up your mind before I enter it into the system," Cross eyed guy says.

"What elese have you got?" The customer goes around to have a look at the rest of the stuff. "I'll give you eighty dollars for the lot." Now there's a guy who knows how to bargain. Forget all the prices between $45 and $80 that we would have accepted. I mean, jeeze, why not offer 60?

"We are the ones with the business licence," Gay guy says. "You'll have to have this conversation outside."

"Ummm, sure." So we apoplogise to cross eyed guy.

"No worries. No skin off my nose," he says to someone standing behind my left shoulder.

Out in the carpark, Kell can't stop laughing as we wait for the customer to finish his business inside. And when the man finally emerges, a kid poked his head out the window of a beat up old car and says, "Dad, I got money." And he brandished a dirty, jangling old sock.

And that set me off as well. Not because the kid had money, but because he was an Aboriginal, black as could be, and the customer looked to be white. He may have had some Aboriginal in him, but it wasn't obvious. And I couldn't help thinking of Earl from 'My Name is Earl' who didn't realise the two black kids weren't his... And the whole situation just seemed like something Earl would get himself into. Number 243, pissed of the gay guy at Cash Converters by stealing his business.

So, there's Kel and I, trying not to laugh as we sell stuff out of the boot of my car behind Cash Converters.

"What's that?" the customer asks, pointing to the cloths rack thingy. "A stand for the stereo?"

We explain.

"Oh, right. Got anything else to sell?"

I had a football in my boot that I thought of giving him for $25, but well... Maybe I hould have sold him CDs for $30 each...

Kel still can't stop laughing whenever she thinks about it.

(I just read back ove that and the tense is all over the place. I just couldn't be bothered fixing it.)