Second Hand: a TV pilot script

Some stories from my life as a teen, and a TV pilot script loosely inspired by that time.

When I was a teen, I woke up at 3:30 AM just about every Sunday.

My dad would drag me out of bed, and into his truck. We’d hit the road for about an hour or so until we arrived at whatever Antique and Collectables show he was selling at that week. I’d help him unload his truck and set up his stand before sunrise. We’d move heavy furniture and boxes packed carefully with delicate items in the darkness. Then I’d go to sleep in the front seat of his truck while he waited for the show to open and customers to come.

As a teen who wanted nothing more than to sleep in on the weekends, this sucked. But I’ve come to look back at these times fondly. It was quality time with my dad (once I woke up from my truck nap.) We’d listen to the Eagles game on the radio (Go Birds) or the weekly Top 40 and we’d talk about nonsense. He’d tell me all about the pieces he was selling, how much he paid for them, and how much he was hoping to get when he sold them. I think the image of my dad I can most clearly picture in my mind is one of him in the front seat of his truck, yellow legal notebook in hand, breaking down his score for me. He’d light up as he told me about each piece, the style, and era it came from, if he’d have to do any work to it before selling it, if he had a buyer in mind already who would want it. He clearly loved breaking it all down for me.

While Sundays were “game day” at the Antique Show they weren’t the only time I’d work with my dad. I’d go on house calls with him when he’d get business from someone looking to sell items. We’d drive around to yard sales and auctions on Saturdays (always getting breakfast first at Bates’ Diner — a diner that, I kid you not, had a bootleg zoo behind it, complete with lions and tigers, something I realize as an adult is very sad and that I need to look into more about how it came about.) My dad gave me an appreciation and taste for mid-century furniture (a taste that is beyond what I can realistically afford) and taught me a lot of things about work — especially the kind that you do because you enjoy it. He had a full-time job as a social worker and sold antiques and collectibles as a side business, something he still does to this day, a full 20 years after “retiring.”

My dad would recruit my friends to help him when he needed extra hands. He paid them real money, too, not just in pizza, which they appreciated. He had a reputation around town as the guy to call if you needed a house cleaned out (typically, after someone died.) He’d buy any of the antiques, collectibles, furniture, kitchenware, or whatever the family didn’t keep and then also clean out any junk and take it to the landfill. These jobs were a real pain in the ass, loading and unloading trucks all day for a few days straight, but it was satisfying when it was done. To this day, I’ll always volunteer to help a friend (or even just an acquaintance) move because I don’t mind moving furniture, I have a lot of experience doing it, and I even kind of miss it a little bit.

I think my dad always liked the fact that he could hang with my friends, too. When we were working, it was more like a crew of equals and less like a kid, his friends, and their chaperone. He had healthy boundaries about it, he wasn’t trying to be the “cool dad,” or anything, but he wasn’t a buzzkill when he was around. We’d joke around, and he’d bust our balls, and my friends and I would make fun of him, real “guy shit.” I’m pretty sure he used this cred as a stealth way to check in on us to make sure we weren’t getting into too much trouble. Pretty sneaky, pops.

This was a big part of my life growing up. Second Hand is a pilot script I wrote loosely based on my time working with my dad and being dragged to antique and collectibles shows as a teen. The twist is, that the son in the story is a down-on-his-luck thirty-something getting dragged to antique and collectibles shows with his dad. The antiques and collectibles show is set in the part of Eastern Pennsylvania that’s equidistant from New York City and Philadelphia. The new owner, who inherited the business from her late father, is trying to “gentrify” the market by attracting more clientele from the cities and less from the hills of Central Pennsylvania. The dad represents the old and the son represents the new and that creates conflict and…well, you know how TV works.

Here’s the part where I paywall the actual script, because I’d like to incentivize some people to become paid subscribers. If you’re in the entertainment industry and want to read it (so you can represent me as a manager or agent, or hire me as a screenwriter, or buy the show or something) then get in touch with me via email and I will send it to you. Same thing goes for real-life friends — you can read this too if you just reach out and ask. Everybody else, sorry, I have to keep some stuff behind a pawall here. If you don’t want to pay, you can refer some friends to subscribe and you’ll receive a free premium subscription based on how many people (free or paid) you get to join my newsletter. That’s pretty cool too.

Now that you’ve read all that, don’t you want to read the script to see how it came out?