Anyone interested in my brand new plush leather reclining sofa? I’m not. Because I just found and favorited a pair of paisley curtains on Etsy. While my doting wife loves to point out the fact that you can’t sit on them, lay on them, or pull them out into an accommodating double bed, I find the 35-year-old, moth hole-ridden fabric of these dusty antique curtains downright arresting. They’re teal you know. And paisley. Did I mention that? The small mustard stain only adds to the mystique and intrigue of what looks to be a glob of wood glue in the center of the left panel. $500? Let me help you spell, “totally worth it.”
I’m afraid what some people don’t understand—my typically supportive wife for example—is that my recent affection for expensive vintage furniture and retro wares has nothing to do with frivolous fashion trends. Sure, my young, hip neighbor Noah sometimes spends hours trying to light his impractical $220 colonial tin cone lantern in a way that seems to grab me by the face and say, “You’re as boring as a bag of bagels,” but that’s not why I’m trying to exchange my month-old pillow-topped mattress for a primitive mid-century table with two broken legs. No. I’m simply drawn to décor that boasts a storied past, and Etsy understands. Take the rustic cottage-style burlap pillow I plan to buy for $75 after I sell my only pair of running shoes—it looks like it was home to a barn owl in the late 1970s because it was. And after I just so happen to place it in a window facing Noah’s bedroom, I think we’ll all agree it really gives the space a soul.
Come in! Please! Let me show you my washer and dryer. They’re so new they still have their boxes. Don’t mind the “not for sale” signs my sometimes less-than-enthusiastic wife has duct taped to their sides—I can assure you that they most definitely must go. And if you can take them off my hands for a scant $600 dollars, I won’t have to choose between the industrial fan that needs rewiring or the screen-less screen door I favorited yesterday—I’ll just buy both!
What’s that? Yes, that’s Noah.
You see how he holds his rusted $120 pre-prohibition cocktail shaker as if to pinch my left testicle and say, “You’re as sad as a pair of stretched-out sweat pants”? Just wave. It won’t be long until I replace my 47-inch plasma screen TV with a $700 repurposed horse trough that’s right out of the revolutionary war. Then we’ll see whose living room is featured in the Neighborhood Quarterly.
Speaking of the neighborhood, let me point out its newest addition. That car in my backyard is right off the lot. See the sales papers taped to the window? That means it’s legitimately brand-new! Don’t mind my perpetually sad wife laying under the front tires chanting “Please go away”—if you want it, it’s all yours, because I don’t know how else we’ll afford the inoperable $3500 dual-roller cotton gin I favorited while we were standing here chatting!
You see, Etsy has tapped my innate need to connect with items of former years that’s distinctly independent of any crippling insecurities I may have regarding a quickly receding hairline or a general lack of meaningful success. I couldn’t care less that people were tripping over each other to talk to Noah about his $175 butter churn at last month’s block party meeting while I silently stroked a cat. I couldn’t care less that I sometimes spell Noah’s name out loud while I violently masturbate myself to sleep.
I JUST LOVE ANTIQUES!
Hold on a second.
Is that Noah, again?
You’re right; he does seem to be receiving a package.
Excuse me while I step out on to the porch to have a closer look, but before I exit, know that if it’s not an exorbitantly-priced dilapidated piece of nonsense plucked from the glittering pages of Etsy.com, I’m going to have to rethink selling you my washer and ask you to get the fuck out of my house before my entirely fragile wife makes good on her second threat to leave me and this world, forever.