The clear out

I already posted about how we spent a lot of time clearing out the "nursery" over the weekend, but wanted to add a couple of things:

1. The chain of events to clear the room is mind-boggling. Each task requires about four others in order to actually happen. For example, to paint the walls, we needed to get rid of the bookcases. To do that, we needed to box up the books that were contained therein. To do that we had to figure out what was staying and what was going. We also needed to find boxes, which was remarkably difficult. The best suggestion was to go to Beverages & More, which turned out to be the worst because those bastards wanted to charge $1 per box. What is wrong with people? This is San Fran-bloody-cisco, we're supposed to be the best recyclers in the country. In the end we built our own boxes out of the one big box that our new bedroom dresser came in.

2. We managed to kerb a bunch of our furniture, but the futon really required an official Craigslist post and an appointment (mainly because I couldn't be arsed to haul it down the 20 front steps to the sidewalk). So up went the post, "Free Futon in Great Condition". Now, in the past with "free" ads I've put on CL, I've been heavily screwed around. This time I vowed would be different - the thing is free so if you want it, it's on my terms. First call was from a lady who lived an hour away. My resolve immediately crumbled and I agreed to hold it for an hour. In the meantime, I had seven more calls, all from people who could pick it up NOW, dammit. Said lady ends up taking two hours to arrive, and when she does, she is by herself. So after all this I STILL have to haul the thing down to the sidewalk. This was after she attemped to park her beaten up old minivan on the sidewalk by hopping the 6 inch kerb, perpendicular to the street. She nearly took out the front wall of the house. The icing on the cake was that when we finally were ready to shove this bed in her van, THERE WAS ALREADY ANOTHER FUTON IN THERE! "It's okay, I'll put it on the roof" she says. You bloody-well will not, because when someone stops suddenly in front of you on the Bay Bridge, you're going to send my old futon flying through their back window into their kids' heads. Eventually we were able to get both beds in the minivan, which was quite amazing, and K and I were one step closer to an empty soon-to-be-nursery. Who knew that giving things away for free can be such a headache.