Tag: slice of life

The Stuff

Mom has moved out of her house and into an assisted living facility.

A household of things have been left behind that we need to move to sell her house. That includes clothing, paintings, vases, dishes, appliances, furniture, electronics. My sisters contacted liquidators and estate sales businesses to see if they would do it for a cut.

Short answer: no. Not enough of value to make it worthwhile.

I wasn’t overly surprised. Mom has tons of clothing and shoes but none is really vintage. She has furniture but the agents said that furniture is a hard sale these days.

My wife and I talked about this in relation to our own life. Adverse to an estate sale after she passes on, my wife has been doing a slow-roll death clean: a drawer a day. A closet. Organizing, tossing, donating. She used to refer to it as simplifying; now she just calls it the death clean.

It’s one of the places where we diverge on our philosophies. I consider my life busy and frantic enough to do without going through my belongings to see what I still want and want I need to throw away or donate. I do so sometimes, but I don’t make it part of my daily or weekly routines.

This exchange summarizes it for us. My wife said, “I don’t want people having to come through the house to get rid of things for me.”

I replied, “I don’t care. I won’t be there.”

As I walk around the house, I wonder, what would the estate sales agents say to me?

I suspect they’ll tell me the same thing they said about Mom’s stuff.

4

Tires & Food

We bought new tires for one of our vehicles yesterday.

I took a memory train back to the first time I bought new tires after I was married.

That would be 1975. The car was a 1968 Camaro. Sweet, small, fast car. RS, 327 V8, automatic. I bought it for $1100 after I arrived at my first permanent duty station in my Air Force career, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio. Paid cash.

I married later that year. My wife and I have wonderful memories of being together in that car.

Buying new tires for it was a major financial decision. Recaps were cheap, $20-$25 each, installed. But recaps? I distrusted their safety and reliability.

That meant new tires: $40 each.

$160.

Ouch.

We didn’t have credit cards, so we’d need to buy the tires with cash. I had that in savings but that would severely reduce the balance.

I remarked about this to my wife at dinner last night.

She remembered, adding, “Yes, the things we couldn’t afford then that we needed, and the things we buy now, that we really don’t need.”

I paid for the dinner with my credit card. Leaving, I thought, I could have bought two new tires for the price of that dinner.

Of course, I could have bought the Camaro for the price of the new tires I put on the car.

It’s all part of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

0

Squirrel!

My wife and I were driving around, dropping off books at Little Libraries. So far, we’d dropped off twenty-five books at five Little Libraries. Only one stop remained.

I turned off East Main. It was sunny but rain was falling on the windshield.

“Squirrel!” my wife shouted.

I’d seen the squirrel bolting into the street and was braking before my wife said anything.

The squirrel and I both stopped. They turned and ran back to the sidewalk but stayed there.

I edged the car forward.

The squirrel edged forward.

I increased my speed.

So did the squirrel.

“Damn, dude, what are you doing?” I asked the squirrel through the window.

It turned right.

I accelerated away.

2

Thoughts From the Bottom

The birth center

Closes

But

It’s alright

Price of beef is

Out of sight

Gas is higher than

We ever thought

Normal

But we’ll be alright

Cause

We got streams

And games

And color

TV

Things like virtual

Reality

Artificial

Dreams

It’s a blast

It’s a scene

Get the highest score

Be

Number

One

Game might be over

But your day

Just

Begun

0

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