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for: ‘January, 2010’

Peculiar Piano Placement

So I was watching an episode of Band of Brothers on HBO in which the brave soldiers of Easy Company were storming a town in Normandy. While they were scrambling for cover from Nazi machine gun fire, they ran past an upright piano that happened to be sitting in the middle of the street. No one was playing it, no one was lying dead beside it, and it appeared to be undamaged. Had it just been abandoned during a desperate attempt by some French pianist to escape with it from the firefight? Really… What the hell was that piano doing in the middle of the street? Then I realized that such peculiar piano placement should neither bewilder nor amaze me, for I have personally seen equivalent ridiculousness within many estates.

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Ugly People and Pie

Sometimes in my adventures I am privy to a situation where someone has passed away and the surviving relatives encircle the estate of the deceased like ravenous buzzards. Right away, sister fights sister, brother battles brother, cousin assaults cousin. Each tries to outsmart the others to get the biggest piece of the pie, or indeed, escape with the whole thing, pan and all.

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Tremendous Squirrels

It was midsummer, 2001. I, my father, and my youngest brother Joseph (who was working with us at the time) embarked upon an estate pickup to West Side Scranton where we were greeted by three, better-than-middle-aged sisters. Though the youngest of these women is now a fuzzy memory, the middle and the eldest sisters stick out in my mind.

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