Here, straight from Craigslist, is the best-ever ad by a guy selling his
clubs.
Flaccid golf clubs for sale
Date: 2012-06-26, 12:34PM
I'm
selling my golf clubs and with a golden satchel of memories. These clubs have been
with me since high school, forty pounds ago, when the world was my oyster, long
before that oyster was left out in the sun to sour, uneaten and spoiled. These
clubs were with me the first time I sank a golf cart in a water hazard, the
first time I polished off a fifth of bourbon during a single round, and the
first and only time I ever killed a bird. These clubs have been in my trunk on
every one of my road trips, whether alone or with friends, so they have seen
the world, or, rather, a corner of the world, just North Carolina really, and
maybe Virginia and South Carolina, but we don't talk about South Carolina, no
one does. These golf clubs were used once in defense against a swarm of bees
that turned out to be imaginary bees brought on by lack of sleep and something
else, some wild fuel I accidentally ate. They have been used as a cane when my
crutches were not around the two times I broke my knee, the second time a
dislocation of the knee cap that led me to believe the pain of child birth
would be both bearable and welcomed should it be an alternative to my knee cap
coming unattached again. These clubs have felt the salty breeze of the Carolina
coast on their face and the brisk numbing wind of the Blue Ridge Mountains
about their grips. These clubs are a piece of American history because they
have seen a piece of America.
These
clubs are also stupid. Anything that has heard words shouted with such
repetition in its presence would have surely learned to cuss by now. These
clubs cannot cuss. They also cannot learn to hit the ball straight. They are
terrible at remembering the few good strokes they have created and fight
constantly to stand out from the herd, to stray, like some weirdo in Jnco jeans in the corner of the cafeteria eating his
spaghetti by hand or some damn Hippie lying in a field going nowhere with his
life. These clubs will never sustain a job because they cannot learn. There is
a reason they are for sale and all sales are final.
I
bought these clubs before I met the girl who would become my wife. I met her
eleven years ago when I was sixteen and had a stomach that no one who knows me
now would believe, ripped like a little Rambo. I had these clubs when I was a
young bachelor, hair down to my shoulders, tearing up the town in a 1990 Volvo 740
SEL with the sunroof open and the road before me like some great American Dream
ready to be snatched, the way candy is from a baby, or a kiss from an easy and
drunk woman.
These
clubs moved from the Volvo to the 1980 midnight blue Chevy Camaro Berlinetta, a thing unlike any other thing, and they
watched me fall in love with my wife, a woman who has mastered both looking
perfect and a number of delicious casseroles. (She's heartbreakingly beautiful
and comforted me each time these golf clubs kicked me in the crotch.) The Berlinetta, the keeper of the clubs for two years, was a
car that only ever knew the sounds of Appetite for Destruction and who wanted
to go so much faster than the 85 miles per hour its speedometer allowed. But
that car was hampered by reality, something its driver never saw coming. Like
the clubs, as in life, like a speedometer only meant to go so fast, potential
is not what you can imagine but what you can do, and the potential in these
clubs is set at a non-negotiable 32 over par. After the Camaro the clubs moved to a
Jeep and then a fuel-efficient Civic, neither of which sustained the fiery joy
of a young man's driving, and neither grown-up car comes with as many stories,
except for that starry night when the State Police knocked on the Jeep window
just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, the flashlight's glow filling the cab, but
that has nothing to do with golf.
PW-3I.
The 3-iron and 4-iron have never been swung. Maybe they have been swung but they have surely never been hit by a ball. The 5-iron worked one sunny day in
August of '01 on a course just outside of Raleigh. And on that day the 5-iron
worked like few 5-irons have worked before. But that day was but a whisper of
joy in a lifetime of defeat, like that scrimmage before senior year against the
worst team in the city when I had twelve tackles and an interception (my count)
and the world (my mom) thought I was going to be a star. But it wasn't meant to
be. Remember the knees. And like the 5-iron I faded into a metaphorical bag in
a metaphorical trunk riding circles around North Carolina looking for another
sunny patch of manicured fairway to kick up.
I
had a sand wedge but I lost it.
For
an added price, negotiable, I will also sell the Bazooka driver. Purchased
along with the irons back when I believed in the names of things--back when
buying something called a Bazooka was a perfect idea--the driver is in good
shape. But it too is a failed son. If the Bazooka were an actual son it would
smoke pot in a basement and troll for uneducated red-headed
former dancers from "down east" in dingy bars on the weekends,
selling the poor girls on stories of grandeur, hope, tales of a Big Bazooka and
all the memories such a Bazooka could bury in her cold and weary heart. But like the actual Bazooka, my driver,
if the Bazooka were a sorry man it would have trouble with its piece and would
fail to make it in the short grass every time. The Bazooka hits a ball straight
up in the air and lands it a hundred yards shy of where you intended, it's like
a quickie when all you really want is the thing to be patient. Up, up, up,
down, down, stop, over, damn, sigh, sorry. The Bazooka is nothing its name
implies, or maybe it is everything its name implies, war on something, war on
your soul. Us Americans and our names. Like a
subdivision named Garden Estates that can only be seen from the highway when
the red dust cloud settles and a view of the trailers emerges from the crimson
squalor.
My
initial asking price is $125 for the clubs. No bag. No extra wedges. No putter.
PW-3I. And $200 if you want the driver. The asking
price is high, yes, but this is a g-d recession if you haven't noticed and the
bar near my house seems to think $2.75 is an appropriate asking price for PBR.
Not only do I have all the hipsters in the world drinking the stuff but they've driven the price through the roof. One day I'll
catch one, one of the skinny, squirrelier ones, and
place his knit cap over his mouth and waterboard him
with Four Loko. But we digress. $125
for clubs, no bag. $200 with driver. (Note. The
driver doesn't come with a head cover because I lost it and bought an
Appalachian State head cover for it and you can't have that because I'm not
buying another Appalachian State head cover. Bazooka comes naked. Naked and
flaccid as it should.)
If
you want to discuss the price you can email me through Craigslist or get me on
twitter (@marctlewis) or my website (marctlewis.com). If
you want to bicker about the price you can bend over and place your head
between your knees until all the blood rushes down there
then you can pop up quickly and pass out. Save me the effort. Also, if you're
the type of person who bickers over a Craigslist price you have neither the
sense of humor nor mental fortitude to wield a set of sad sticks such as these.
Let the bidding begin and don't be cheap. Everyone is poor these
days. You're not special.
¥
Location: Raleigh
¥
it's NOT ok to contact this
poster with services or other commercial interests
Original URL: http://raleigh.craigslist.org/spo/3102325889.html
