$88 of pure profit, bad timing, bad burger or putrid pickles?
So Saturday morning was our big yard sale. I had a put a decent amount of effort into prepping for the sale, not only getting all of our stuff together but also creating a large sign for our street and smaller ones that I posted out on Immokalee Road.
I set the alarm for 5:30 am. My first task was to get the signs out on the road to help funnel potential yard sale customers our way. I grabbed DD coffee on the way to help clear out the cob webs. Once I got home I started digging into getting everything that was jammed into the garage out onto the driveway so it could be displayed as attractively as possible.
I was busting my ass getting everything set up. It was now 7:30 am and Ali was still inside at her computer checking Facebook in no rush at all to come out and help me. Ali hates everything to do with yard sales. She hates going through stuff, she hates haggling with people that ask for a discount off 25 cent items and hates putting it away. Even though I am well aware of her dislike of the process i didn’t think it was very fair for her to let me do the entire set up process myself and I let her know it. Reluctantly she came out just as people were starting to show up.
I had a couple “big” ticket items (anything that is more than a dollar) Among them was the old tv from the guest room which was now useless with a digital OTA antenna (without a converter box) I also had our old tiller, a small tv that used to be in the party van, my beat up old pop up shelter and a few other items. We also had a number of free items, things that if noone took we would just throw out. The sale was much more about just getting rid of junk and not making large amounts of cash in the process.
I decided I would start the first ever yard sale worldwide broadcast on justin.tv. My Iphone captured the magic for almost a full three hours until it died. If you would like to see, go here.
As expected we had the normal ridiculous haggling going on. Haitians are absolutely the worst at this. No matter what price you say something is, they want to pay half of that. If you say something is a penny, they want 2 items for a penny. I have experienced this phenomenon during other Florida yard sales we had so I knew what to expect from them. It still is rather frustrating.
During the first hour or two of the sale most of the larger items were gone. The one big item I was hoping to unload, the old solar pool cover reel, was pretty much the only thing big that was left. During a break in the action I drove the van up and down our street to see how many people had stuff out. I was a bit disappointed when I saw only a few people were out, maybe 10.
Our next door neighbor had a TON of stuff and as a result she had more people mulling about than we did. She ran her sale all day Sunday as well.
A little after noon I was ready to call it quits. We packed up the stuff and loaded most of it in the trunk of the Camry for Ali to drop off for donation. I took a few other items out to the street and marked them as FREE, including the pool reel. I was thrilled when I saw a truck pull up and take almost all of it.
When we counted up our money it came out to $88. I had mentioned to Jeremy that $100 was more or less the over under number so I fell a bit short of my monetary goal. I didn’t care though since almost all of the stuff was out of my hair.
Saturday night we stayed home since we had a race to time on Sunday. We watched Hot Tub Time Machine on dvd. I had heard from a few people it was funny.
The movie was pretty good, sort of a poor man’s Hangover. There were plenty of funny moments and the theme of going back to relive the 80’s is something I can identify with. Ali thought it was pretty good too, somewhat surprising since there were a couple scenes containing bare boobage. I’d give the flick a B to a weak B+.
Saturday night I was not feeling good. Actually I started not feeling great Friday at the gym. I had a sore throat, low energy and a runny nose. I was not thrilled to have to get up early for the second time in the weekend, this time at an insane 4 am, especially when I wasn’t feeling good.
Luckily this race is relatively small and most of the runners pre-registered for it. It also is a long race, a 20K so I have at least an hour until the first runner crosses the finish. After helping before the race Ali ran the 12.4 miles with Christie and Michelle. Ali finished the race looking very fresh for just running such a distance. Her running fitness level is really up there.
When we got home I actually laid down and took a nap with Ali after finishing up the post race work. I just didn’t feel good.
GROSS OUT WARNING – The next few paragraphs go into detailed description of bodily functions gone awry.
Last night for dinner I made burgers on the grill. We also had baked beans and I had a few pickles. When I ate the pickles I commented to Ali that they didn’t quite taste right, I didn’t finish them. As the night wore on I developed a headache. I don’t get a lot of headaches. It was bothering me enough that I bailed out of my WoW session and went back to the bedroom to lay down.
Along with the headache, that had some migraine like symptoms where light and noise annoyed me, I was also feeling nauseous. I just laid there on the bed for a period of time, wishing for it to all go away. Ali came back to check on me but she wasn’t that interested in being anywhere near me in my current state. Since she is supposed to do a half marathon next weekend she was more concerned with catching whatever was ailing me which to be honest kind of hurt my feelings since I was feeling so terrible.
While Ali was in the shower the nausea hit me hard, I knew it was time to get to the bathroom, quickly. As soon as I hit my knees I unleashed a violent torrent of vomit. It felt like my body was a gun and the puke was the bullet. As soon as I puked I flushed the toilet, hoping to get the disgusting mixture out of my sight and smell. Instead it just set off another round of vomiting.
In total I think I puked 5 or 6 times. It was awful. I HATE vomiting. The only time I have vomited as an adult were all self inflicted due to alcohol abuse.
After I was done I felt somewhat better. Ali had wandered out after her shower and caught the tail end of the projectile vomiting episode. I am quite sure she was happy when I told her there was nothing she could do for me at that time, you don’t want anyone to see you in that condition.
It was then that I theorized about this mess being the result of food poisoning. The only two suspects would either be the odd tasting pickles or possibly I undercooked my burger although I don’t recall it looking or tasting undone.
I was covered in a cold sweat and just sat in the chair in the great room for a bit trying to recover. I told Ali I HAD to take a shower, I felt disgusting. Ali said I should just go to bed. I managed to drag myself into the shower and clean up.
I asked Ali if she wanted me to sleep in the spare bedroom to minimize her exposure to me. She said “no” in away that meant “yes but I don’t want to sound callous” so I grabbed a magazine and headed off to the guest room.
So reading my magazine made me sleepy plus my body was spent from the expulsion process. Just as I was ready to drift off I all of a sudden felt a violent spike in my gut. I shot out of bed and hit the toilet. This started several hours of horrible diarrhea which rivaled the vomit in velocity. I again had five or six separate episodes that carried into the early AM.
After my last bathroom trip I grabbed a bottle of Pepto and took a shot, hoping it would stop the toilet insanity. Finally I was done. My mouth was parched from losing so much water out of both ends. I was afraid to drink even water though, I just wanted it all to stop.
Even when I did fall asleep it was not very solid. I recall having very unpleasant dreams that left me waking up sweated through my clothes more than once. When I woke up this morning it felt like I was out of the woods, I don’t think there was anything left to expel. Although I didn’t feel like I had to throw up I still felt wiped out from went down. I was tired and weak. I called off work and am hoping to get back on feet for tomorrow.
I realized over the weekend that my timing for cutting Comcast was not exactly great. This week the Eagles play on Monday Night Football. MNF is on ESPN, something not carried over the airways. I do have a possible workaround albeit a bit clumsy. I am hoping to use one of my laptops and connect it to the bedroom tv. I will then try to load up the game on a site I found that broadcasts live sporting events. I used it yesterday to check in on various NFL games and it seemed to work pretty well. We’ll see how it works tonight.