The Letter from Home
by Dino Fire
It's been an interesting day, telecommunications-wise. Called home after the auction (more about the auction in a minute), explaining to my wife the wares I had picked up so far. At one point in the conversation, I was describing the virtues (and extravagant resale possibilities) of a "new" Red Wing Stoneware 1996 McDonald's crock, limited edition, yadda yadda, I hear absolute silence in response to my obviously misguided profit-motivated excitement. "Pam, Pam, are you there? What's wrong?" I asked. Silence. She hung up on me. I shoulda known this piece would be trouble when someone stopped me at the show to ask "You came halfway across the country to buy THAT?"
Meanwhile, I hear some static on the phone line, and it's my muffled-voice spouse yelling halfway across our kitchen into the speakerphone option on this phone of ours. "HALEY JUST ATE THE PHONE CORD!!!" she screams. Evidently, in the middle of our conversation, Haley, our behaviorally-challenged Siberian Husky, in one swift chomp, snapped the phone cord neatly in two, just to see what manner of reaction she could elicit.
When our conversation resumed (the dog sheepishly sulking by now, I'm sure), Pamela asked me if I had read her email to me yet. But the trusty internet must have routed this note from my wife to me from Chapel Hill to Rochester by way of Uranus. I finally read it this evening, and now, for your reading pleasure, here it is, in it's unedited glory. The subject line is UPDATE...
| I was looking at you guys' update. Under
Fridays, pictures of peoples collection, who has all the Magnolia under picture six? And do they want a new best friend? HOW COME I cant have all that. HMMMMM. My husband keeps selling it all..... Where is HASONE, I need to talk to her before she leaves....... Gotta go. I will fill you in on all the adventures. Just a hint..... It involves only a small ladder outside. We no longer have a washer, dryer or couch. Boy you should go away more often I get tons done. Love ya. Pam |
Welcome to my life. Now about the auction...
I do not need a Northwest Airlines ticket, I need a J.B. Hunt tractor trailer. I already have a room full of new Red Wing inventory that I will have to deal with in some way, I have plans to go find more tomorrow, and meanwhile, they're GIVING IT AWAY at the auction! By my quick calculations, the average price for those damaged crocks and jugs...all Wing pieces, mostly minor damage, is just over $20 per piece. If I were 100 miles from home instead of 1,000, I would have bought more than the one churn I bought...I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT ALL. ALL 400 PIECES. ALL OF IT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?? ALL ALL ALL!!!
OK, I've calmed down now, at least temporarily. As you can see, faithful readers, I am one of those Red Wing stoneware collectors who carefully appraises, researches, and scrutinizes pieces before I make that final purchase decision. Then, calmly and thoughtfully, I BUY IT ALL!!!! Oh, it has a base chip? SOLD! Oh, it has a "hairline" crack the size of the Grand Canyon? SOLD! Oh, it was run over by a steam roller and is in ten million pieces? SOLD! I'll sell the shards to Byron for belt buckles and nose-rings!
But then that little United Parcel Service angel on my shoulder kept nagging me, in it's little tiny voice of reason "but Dino, how will you get it back to Carolina? Sure you paid like $1.95 for that churn, BUT IT'S GONNA COST YOU THIRTY BUCKS TO SHIP IT, MR. HIGH FINANCE!" That's about when Byron and I began the discussion about U-Hauls, storage units, and Star Trek transporter beams.