It sits there in our driveway – big, blue, metallic, inviting. It’s our rented dumpster. Truly, Helaine would not be happier if there was a Rolls in its place!
As she is the brains of our operation, and I am the brawn (no snickering, please), she started the culling and organizing without me. There were value judgments to be made.
Does this have any worth? Could we foist this on some other unsuspecting yutz on eBay? If we did, would anyone spend the 45¢ plus $30.00 shipping?
Most items are taking their last perp walk to the dumpster.
When I got out of bed this morning, the closet by the back door was already disemboweled. This is an archaeological dig in every sense of the word. Corralled away from the closet’s Riff Raff, a Furby (original box) sat along a wall.
The deeper Helaine dug, the older the items. There were tschochkes meant to be given away at Steffie’s Bat Mitzvah. I remember Stef and Helaine scouring the “Oriental Trading Company” catalog for blow up microphones and Groucho glasses.
Helaine walked up to me, carrying a heavy burlap bag. As silver quarters, halves and dollars were pulled from circulation, Grandpa Sol removed them from the cash register at the little luncheonette he ran. This bag was his haul.
They are probably worth something and I will begin to list them on eBay. At some point someone tried to clean them, probably with a pencil eraser. I know that’s not a good thing.
We retreated to the basement, where there were already boxes and bags of trash waiting. “We’ve been married a long time. Too long,” said Helaine, as she smiled and hoisted the first of many bags up the basement steps to the backyard.
There were boxes of airchecks and ¾″ videotapes (try and find a machine that plays those now) I used looking for a job a few decades back.
We found a going away card from the staff at Channel 2 in Buffalo. I left there in May 1984. I only recognized a few names. That’s sad.
The whole process is like peeling away at an onion. Layer-by-layer our past will come back to us. Little remembrances and physical non sequitors will be revealed.
Already, Helaine showed me an extending pole, wrapped in its original plastic and asked, “What’s this?
When it’s all over, we’ll have room for another few decades of junk. Is that good news or bad?
*Never* underestimate someone’s willingness to pay to get something. Auction 260030413040 sold for $9.99 and cost $65 to ship to Spain. Furby’s are going for 20-30 bucks and you could list yours as “vintage.” ;0)
I’ll spare you the list, but suffice it to say that the example above is not all that isolated an auction.
Geoff,
Keep me in the “loop” on the sales…I collect coins and some other “junk,” and have a couple of friends that collect with me…
Thanks and good luck.