posted on Tuesday, October 24, 2006 10:27 AM
by
timbarcz
Selling Your Life For A Quarter at a Time
Look at the things you have on right now. Your shirt, your shoes, you pants, and maybe your watch. Do you remember the day you got them? Do you remember some meaningless details about that day and/or the time when you got them. For me, the watch I wear, was a huge purchase. It's a GPS capable watch that I use when running. I remember buying it and having it delivered to my brother's house in Arizona because I was going to be running a marathon the next day and I wanted to have the watch for it.
I'm asking you these questions and telling you about one specific example for me, because just the other day, I saw one of the saddest things I think I've seen in awhile.
I live on a quiet cul de sac. We have varied ages of people in our neighborhood. Newlyweds to retirees, young bachelors to single elderly women. Occassionally my wife will bake something and we'll take it across the street to two separate elderly people who live alone, who we've taken it upon ourselves to greet, spoil with food, and help when needed. One in particular, Carl, is friendly as can be. Carl is 94, living on his own, and his mind is sharp. I used to see him walking every day. He would walk from his house to a bridge nearby and back, the equivalent of maybe 100-150 yards.
About a week ago, my wife and I noticed a lot of commotion at Carl's house. We wondered to ourselves what was going on. A day later, a "For Sale by owner" sign was up. When we questioned one of the people at Carl's house, we found out "Carl had a relapse." Having no idea "relapse" meant for Carl, we inferred that he was now in a nursing home or some sort of assisted living.
Last Saturday we again noticed a lot of people over at Carl's house. This time though there was a new sign out front in addition to the "For Sale by owner", this one read "Tag Sale". Sarah and I walked over and looked through the garage and then followed some other patrons into the house. I was somewhat suprised at what I saw. Everything was in it's place, where Carl had presumably left it. Only now, on each item there was a piece of masking tape indicating a price. We looked around, feeling odd the whole time. The difficult part for me was entering Carl's room. There in his closet, a nice suit, for a few bucks. Shoes, nice, black, obviously cared for by their shining exterior were on sale for 50 cents. There on the shelf in the closet, a hat. The kind of hat you don't see anymore and only seems appropriate on men over 70 years old. The same hat I see my grandfather wearing to church on Sunday mornings in pictures. The hat, a mere 25 cents.
I didn't purchase anything, it didn't feel right. And after visiting the bedroom, I wanted to leave. There were plenty of other people there, eating up the good deals, not slowing enough realize their good deals were someone's life being liquidated. It was just all too sad, that somewhere, Carl was "relapsing", away from the home he's lived in for years, away from his things, which were being sold for a quarter at a time.
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