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Humor
Three-Wheeled Bicycles
Often my states of mind aren’t served up neat. My moods are usually cocktails consisting of curious combos that can be the dangerous and intoxicating intellectual equivalent of Jaeger and Red Bull. Indeed, as I write this very blog post, I find myself feeling both facetious and magnanimous. Hence the following list of heterogeneous statements will seem comically sarcastic to some, while others will view them as small epiphanies. Yes, I offer the following tidbits with the intention of making most of you laugh, but note that they also serve the need to set the record straight with certain misinformed individuals.
Boxlot Post No. 1
So what exactly is a boxlot? Well, every estate has piles of tchotchkes that aren’t necessarily garbage, but that aren’t good enough to stand on their own. Individually, these bric-a-brac are worth $10 and less. Trying to sell each of these things individually during an auction is boring and inefficient. However, these items still have value, and as auctioneers, we are obligated to produce every dollar we can for our consignors. So we make boxlots: literally cardboard boxes loaded with miscellaneous items that are sold together for one price. Boxlots are a win-win situation. The consignors get the value out of usable items that may have been otherwise disregarded, and the bidders get the opportunity to buy those items in an efficient way.
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.
Befuddled by a Dressing Table
I was alone in the gallery, setting up for an approaching auction, when two women (I’ll call them Dense and Denser) walked in to have a look. Dense and Denser perused the inventory, making squealing quips and clucks. I gave them a few minutes to walk around before greeting them and asking if I could be of any assistance.
Baboons with Hammers
When I look upon the magnificence of the Empire State Building or the majesty of the Nicholson Bridge, I wonder how the generation that created such wonders in the first part of the 20th century could also create some of the dumbest, most asinine, chop-busting houses ever made. I become bewildered at how an American society with such architectural visionaries could allow some of their contemporaries–mere baboons with hammers–to construct familial living quarters with five-foot high basements, 22-inch doorways, and six-foot tall bedrooms with 20-inch square cutouts in their cranium crunching ceilings as the means to enter the “attic.”