By Jody Worsham
All rights
reserved for Auction Anonymous
It depends on the person you ask. Our auction/bargain
hunting days have now spanned forty-eight years. During that time what he buys is still
inventory and what I buy, he claims is junk.
I fail to see the difference.
But to be
fair all of the chest of drawers from the auction 48 years ago are gone except
for two I have in my sewing room. The
birch became tables, workbenches, cabinets, and chairs. Most of the remaining bedframes, after
supplying six children with multiple beds and a few trips to the salvage yard
when funds were low, were made into fence posts to fence our thirty-five acres
of land. It was a little strange to see,
but it kept the horses and cows off the road.
The few remaining bedframes are in a small pile in the back pasture.
It turned
out the band uniforms were not a bad investment. Each uniform had sixty-four silver knob
buttons, six yards of woven nylon cording that formed the citation cords, and a
hat with a plume. I offered band
uniforms to every theatre department that was even thinking about performing
“Music Man”. The Nacogdoches Historical
society bought some to use as the basis for Santa Anna’s officers for a
re-enactment. A couple of choirs bought
some to use as costumes for toy soldiers.
My students strung and hung silver buttons on stage to create a perfect
starry night and we have used the nylon cording to tie up just about
everything.
But I am a
little worried today. Sutherland’s has
been going out of business since Christmas and Dr. Hubby has been adding to his
“Never-know-when-you-might-need-it inventory” since before Christmas. I now have a weather thermometer in every
bedroom, bathroom, and closet in the house just because they were a good
price. Today is the final, final, really
final last day public auction.
With his
first call he announced “I got you some shelving. I don’t know what you can do with it, but it
was a good buy.” That had me a little
worried. Why would there be any question
about what you would do with shelving unless…I won’t go there…yet.
His second
call said “I got you some yard sticks.
Think you can find a use for them?”
By now I was getting a little leery.
“How many?”
“A case…or two….”
“Ok, well
that’s not bad. The school can probably use
some yard sticks I….you said a case or two…how many cases? Exact number.”
“Eight.”
“And how
many yard sticks in a case?” I was
learning.
“Five………..hundred.”
“You bought
4,000 yard sticks? What are we going to
do with 4,000 yardsticks?”
“Make tables? Use them to make Santa Anna-Music Man-Toy
Soldier Scarecrows?”
The third
time the phone rang I almost didn’t pick it up for fear of what he had bought
next. However, imagining what he had
bought was worse than knowing.
“What did
you buy this time?”
“Uh, now it
only has 50,000 miles on it. It was a
real good price. “
“I hope you
are talking about a dolly.”
“It’s a
truck. Well, I had to have some way to
haul my inventory home.”
Our town has
a growing number of storage facilities.
If I read in the newspaper about a storage unit auction, I’m chaining
him to his recliner and going myself.
There might be some good junk there that I can turn into inventory. At least I won’t come home with 4,000
yardsticks!
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