My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

two gentleman came to look at my wares
Put an ad on Craigslist, which sometimes comes out as craigslit when I type and I checked but there isn’t a porn site there.

“These frames are pretty thrashed and are missing parts but you can take them both for one price – $30. I mean beaten, rode hard and put away more than damp. But there’s gotta be something positive there. Ready to made into a fixy, fixed gear, whatever you call it. Or let it coast. Come take them to your shop. I’m in the outer richmond of san francisco. The first picture I uploaded by accident. It’s a folding boat. I’m leaving it up so people know there’s a boat out there that folds up. ”
from my CL ad
a real $15 bike on CL

There’s the ad. I got a whole cross section of a medical study on pack-rat mentality. I’m selling a bicycle for 15 dollars in 2009 and people ask how much a part is. Say, just the front wheel? How much for that?

“14.50″ I answer.

“I might as well buy the whole thing,” they answer.

“I’d appreciate that,” I say.

Writing an ad on craigslist is like inviting a gypsy caravan to camp in your back yard, and when they ask if they can promote a circus act they’ve been performing, you say, “Sure!”.

I haven’t forgotten I’m weird, either. Don’t get me wrong. I moved out to the Richmond District because I wanted to really stand out. If you throw up on your shoes on Polk Street ten guys will drop down and try to lick it up. I can’t compete. So I moved out here where the streets are clean and empty so I might get a little respect as an eccentric.

The strangest thing is the people that come and look and look and look. They hold the bike up with one hand and lean back, trying to see it from the distance. Then they hoist it up by the seat and spin the back wheel to see how true it needs to become. They squeeze the brake lever time and time again, like a doctor who keeps hitting your knee as you sit cross legged on the edge of a medical table. They are fascinated by mechanical motion. A monkey who has discovered that a banging gong rings.

“I squeeze handle and rubber thing pinches wheel!” says a grunting customer.

“I knee balls and you bend over!” I say as I knock the man’s nutsack up into his taint.

The best thing is I know they are interested, but if I don’t go below $15 bucks they won’t bite. I have my bikes laid out directly in front of the bee hive’s flight path and it is getting on towards evening and they are coming back from the neighborhood flowerbeds. The Replies, as I shall call them, in that they replied to my ad, have their heads down and are trying to figure out how much money they can make off me. They walk away from an amazing deal because I won’t come down from $15 to $10.

“You allergic to bees?” I ask.

“No, I don’t think so,” replies the Reply.

“Good. Because you’re standing in front of a hive.”

The Reply straightens up and realizes bees are coming in from the east at eye level to the tune of twenty-five a minute. Others are milling around in lazy circles around his legs. A writhing mass of 200 are tangled up in each others warmth at the hive entrance seven feet away.

“Oh. I didn’t realize. How much for the seat post?”

“14.50″