Jonesing For Shelving Units

I was pretty amped up and didn't really need the coffee that was brewing. I threw myself together and double checked my list of to-do's while putting on the layers of winter attire. I plucked the blank check from Johns desk along with the list from the paper, tucking them into my top zippered pocket of my coveralls.

I hadn't been to an auction all year, but I couldn't pass this one up. Stores don't close down everyday, and I needed store shelving and a lot of other stuff. The floral shop had been in Nevada for years, I found out just how many, a few hours later.

It was cold, it being November, so there were fewer folks there than would've been in warmer weather. It was a common white house on an unimpressive corner, a few blocks off the main drag. Behind the house, the tattered remnants of a large green house that had seen a better time, was filled with open boxes. People wandered through, rummaging the contents for long lost treasures. Attached to the far end was the floral shop. There was a small trailer parked up by the front door where some elderly patrons were gathered in a friendly huddle. The white Styrofoam cups bobbed up and down, leaving wisps of steam in their wake. I sipped on my stainless coffee cup, wishing I was feeling social today. I felt more like a ghost, content to remain unnoticed and uninteresting, as I drifted through the maze silently at intervals throughout the day. There seemed no end to the haphazard additions that had marked periods of momentary prosperity. And just as it had grown, so it also shrank back from the decay of decades, until the only part being maintained was the store front.

I did my best not to dote on the trinkets. I was there for counters and shelving, and maybe a cash register, but I didn't see one. I had to keep telling myself not to bid. There were so many things I could have used for my store. Whenever the auctioneer would try to coax a $2 bid, John's face would drift into focus, chastising me for entertaining the idea of non-essentials. Even when he's not there, his nagging reaches out across space and chokes the life out of the best of days. He's such an old woman. So I would refrain, kicking myself the whole time. I knew what kind of bargains I could have gotten. Why did they keep veering off the path to the shelving? I really needed to see what they were going to run me before I dared indulge even one bidding war fantasy.

Eventually, they auctioned the shelving units. I bought every one of them. I also bought some flats filled with vases and other stuff. Boxes of fish bowls, some miscellaneous and mostly...vases.

I didn't get all the vases I wanted. There happened to be one antique dealer with a very deep pocket who won everything he put his mind to. I kicked at the dust and ground my teeth whenever he'd call my raise. I knew I couldn't win against him. I had a budget that had no room for such flamboyance.I did end up with most of the vases in the back room. I got many good pieces. Most I will sell., seein's how that's my business..you know,selling stuff I wish I could keep.

All in all, the day was alright. It warmed up, I got what I came for at a price I liked. I made a new friend, she's an artist from Huntington Beach, with many of the same interests as I. I even got some resale items, a few vases I could actually keep if I stick them up on the shelf when John ain't lookin', a huge floral cart (one of the I-could-really-use-if-I-find-one items) and a great walnut buffet, and all for half what he said I could spend, and still he tells me...in front of witnesses...that he'll never give me a blank check again. He always does that.He gives me money, tells me what to buy, I buy it, come back, give him the change, and he bitches until I pay him to shut up. Which mysteriously comes to exactly what I just spent.

So, he gets to come off like this big generous guy to everybody, and I look like the woman that takes advantage, because he doesn't do anything nice without the whole world hearing all about it and being given ample time to pay homage to his thoughtfulness, and he knows I don't tell anyone how it really went after he's through playing me. Hmm... I have a daughter like that too.

Well, I must not mind as much as I think I do, because after all, I'm still here.

11/23/2005 0:0 AM
word count 802