
What surreal experience, mon.
Getting beers at a yard sale?!?!?!
(Read on for more.)
So, Carolyn & I decided to go yardsaling with the specific purpose of searching for old tee-shirts that we could use to stain the wood in our house which Virginia Design Builders refused to stain. (They’re assholes. Original contract said to move shelves and closet. They instead threw the shelves away by “accident” and failed to properly move the closet. When they created new ones from scratch, they refused to stain it to match the original color. I STRONGLY ADVISE NO ONE TO DO BUSINESS WITH DAN LOPEZ OF MARYLAND, OR VIRGINIA DESIGN BUILDERS.)
Anyway…
So we go to this “huge” yard sale (which wasn’t actually that big), and the people there are all Jamaican.
They were very friendly and gregarious. The next thing we know, they are putting beers (Corona) in our hand.
Other people come. Other people get beers too. Apparently earlier they were grilling Jamaican Jerk chicken. Before too long, they started cleaning some fish to throw on the grill.
We probably hung out there for at least 30 minutes. It was definitely the longest we’ve ever been at a yardsale.
Before too long, they had put two more beers in our hands.
So… By the time we left the yard sale to go to Boston Market, we were actually more buzzed than we would like to be while driving.
So these people were all Jamaicans in their early 40s. They were extremely friendly, liked to throw parties. They said when they moved in their first party involved people being outside in the yard until 6AM, younger people showed up jealous because they were usually the ones with the late parties, and eventually the police were called.
Another couple came to the yardsale. The guy looked like Jack Bauer’s dad in 24, who also played an old man in Six Feet Under who married Ruth (the grandma) during the 2nd-to-last season. His wife was black, with a very noticeable British accent. She talked to the Jamaicans — turns out her parents were from Jamaica, but settled in the UK where she was born.
So… There I was surrounded by black people with two different accents, neither of which sound like the normal accent you would get from a black person around this area. It was definitely interesting.
In the end, we gave them our phone number and said “Invite us to your next party!” and did introductions.
I’ve never before gone yardsaling and ended up partying.
Incredibly surreal. I had to pee three times at Boston Market. This was crazy!
If we ever get invited to a party, I’m sure it’s bound to be completely interesting and different than what we are accustomed to!
May 5, 2007 at 6:16 PM
That sure sounds like a fun yard sale!
May 5, 2007 at 6:27 PM
It was pretty crazy.
May 6, 2007 at 11:15 AM
Hi from sunny Barbados!
West Indians are generally very friendly people. This is why the impersonal feeling we get sometimes when in USA can hit us for six.
Keep blogging!
PS. I have added your blog to mine to get a taste of the US culture. I do peep in from time to time :-)
May 23, 2009 at 11:54 AM
We went yardsaling today, and I was like, “this house reminds me of the Jamaican yardsale house”. Turns out, it was the Jamaican yardsale house! They didn’t have a bunch of people around drinking beer this time, and there didn’t seem to be as much stuff this time, but they did offer us some Coronas when we were trying to decide whether to buy.
May 23, 2009 at 7:26 PM
[...] around 9:15AM and yardsaled for 3 hours. Not nearly as hot as 2 weeks ago. We even wound up at the Jamaican yard sale we’d blogged about before and got a better bread machine from [...]