The Estate Sale Diaries-March 30, 2012

I suppose I risk losing my readers' interest before I begin this vignette by writing about stopping at the Mini-Mart to gas up my thirsty truck. But that is where my day began.

I pulled in to the station and found every pump occupied by a car or van, and not one of them attended by a human. This peeved me ,for there is nothing I hate more than getting to an estate sale and ending up last in line outside the door.

But there was no help for me this morning, for the parking lot and pumps were full because of the line of dreamers inside. Every lawn care business crew, every gaggle of repairmen were in the store waiting to buy a 500 million dollar lottery ticket. That the chance of having a Martian at their house for a barbecue was greater than buying a winning ticket did not occur to these people, who probably were promising God and St Peter that they would give the first 100 million away to Charity if they won-

And because of them, I did end up at the end of the estate sale line, though I still took home the painted metal grill I had seen on the estate sale company's website.

The sale was at a condo neighborhood very near the Hall Tract, the newest part of the Warner Parks. The condos were surrounded by forest, and it buffered the sound from Highway 70. This was a serene neighborhood of birdsong, shade, and small gardens-the kind of place that is a reproach to renters such as I, who will never own so fortunate a home. (My upstairs neighbors are constructing a freeway in their apartment. They start working on it and blasting as soon as I go to bed).

Angst, the remains of a migraine, and a paltry bank balance are not good companions at a sale, but this sale was forgiving.


The man who was selling the condo and its contents was neither a reader or a cook, so temptation was small. Lots of contemporary art, Navajo baskets, vases, wall hangings- little that appealed to me. There were two outdoor metal benches I would have been interested in squeezing onto my porch, but they were not cheap, and I could not afford. The kitchen was no bigger than a closet, with room for only one inside. The rest of the space was taken up by a Rival crockpot.

This home, on three levels, with a deck and glass doors facing a ravine of flowering trees, was more gallery than living space. It seemed to have been one man's private museum-

Here are two found objects I brought home-