Who knew!?!

[threadwalker]

You couldn't point your car at Mt Diablo and "find" one of the roads to the top by randomly circling the base?

but you could wander for half an hour and find an estate sale. And at the sale:

I'd meet an interesting man who, as a pilot, flies sushi all over the world and, twice divorced, likes his current girlfriend and says he's well on the way to getting along with his future 3rd ex-wife.

I'd get a real Louisville Slugger bat for $5 (to be installed in shed for scary nights when the wind rips the door open)

I'd see the remains of someone's life up for sale while strangers pawed through it like jackels looking for meat on the bones. If you looked... really LOOKED, you realized the wedding dress was new, the old man ball caps were loved, and the baking dishes were worn out with use. You could see what was worn, what was treasured and that someone LOVED cats because of all the nick-nack cat sculptures and cat art. The story of their lives laid out and for sale. I commented to one jackel that I was sad and she said, "why, because it's all so over-priced?"

I'd wonder what my life would look like spread out and up for sale? would people haggle over the canned food in my pantry, too? Or, like one lady, exclaim "$1 for 3 items? That's a good deal!"?

I'd go outside and enjoy the fact that it was a beautiful day and I'd like to think the original owner would get a kick out of the fact that the bat was going to be part of the Corbie Cave Defense Grid. And that the handpainted teapot and creamer really truly are appreciated and will be put to use with the handpainted teacups I have (all mismatched!).

I'd come home and my family would leap to see me and we had the BEST EVER nerf-gun war. Miss E and I warning Super N he could NOT use us as a shield. F with the Nerf "missle launcher" (single shot and for some crazy reason, Super N kept rearming him!!! Go figure since he was then leaping and hiding.)

I'm not really grim on the inside. But it is shaping up to be a weird day and I wasn't expecting introspection or "big thoughts".

Hi-Ho! I'm off to Hunt the Wild Linoleum Beast so that we can go back to using our master bath... getting tired of pushing aside the kiddie stuff in the other bathroom and sharing space with frick and frack.

Comments

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd gone there too. I know those thoughts.

I have a lot of them for myself these days. What will people be thinking when they go through my house? This odd selection of books; these strange clothes; this diverse selection of art supplies; teaching supplies for so many grades and subjects; all this fabric .... all these unfinished projects of so many kinds...... what picture will they form of me? Somehow I doubt it will be very accurate.

I don't think my remaining daughters would have much interest in most of these things....

Somehow I'd hope my 'treasures' would go to someone who would value them as I have. I think the former owners of the things you purchased would be glad for you to have them.

[rustmon.livejournal.com]

*HUG*

[beanolc.livejournal.com]

I love that type of thing. There's a shop in Santa Cruz Himself and I used to frequent that was full of estate sale-type things. Great combination of junk and treasures.

[fighter-chick.livejournal.com]

Actually, I could probably tell you, down to some of the most minute details, what the jackals who haunt estate sales think as they paw through the detritus of peoples' lives.

They aren't thinking of the person who died. They're thinking about themselves.

The most dedicated estate-sale jackals are antiques and collectibles dealers. They're hoping that the estate belonged to an elderly lady who collected knicknacks, preferrably made out of glass and china. The furniture dealers drool over well-kept heirloom china cabinets and dining sets. Tool specialists hope to find a shed out back filled with generations' worth of not-too-rusty treasure.

The underground economists come to seek whatever it is they need this week--be it a new-to-them piece of furniture, kitchen tools, or even a still-usable stack of sheets and towels.

Genuinely poor folk look for bargains and will often haggle with all their might. This is *not* generally a sign of disrespect; instead, it's usually a custom from another culture, where haggling is an integral part of the process of buying and selling.

It's the casual passer-by, like you, who is most likely to think about the origin of the items on sale. Of the lives out there on card tables with price stickers.

To me, the moral of these fact is: live your life for all you're worth while you're around. Share yourself and your best-loved interests with friends and family *now*, because no one's going to appreciate you the way you'd like them to after you're gone.

But then, I'm harshly pragmatic about things like this.

[fighter-chick.livejournal.com]

Oh--at a regular (non-estate) garage sale a month or so ago, I got to talking with one of the sellers as I bought a pile of 2-3 yard fabric scraps. Turns out she creates custom window treatments, and would be happy to sell me whatever scrap pieces I'd like every 6 months or so. I gotta show you the piece of embroidered silk I got from her that would make a *gorgeous* stomacher!

[aastg.livejournal.com]

Without the unifying principle of the person who owned it, it's all just stuff.

I sometimes think about someone picking up one of my very best books at a garage sale, and sniping that my writing my Ex Libris in my books reduced their resale value. This makes me smile.

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

Uh huh!

[shutt3rg33k.livejournal.com]

I remember going to estate sales in my neighborhood as a child and just soaking in the people's history all around me in their belongings. Always made me melancholy to realize these things were losing their true meaning by being sold to someone else.