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I See Dead People’s Stuff …

Estate Sales. That’s what Wifey™ and I did on Sunday. We went to a couple of estate sales. Quite a few were garage sales, named estate sales to draw the crowds. Others were actual estate sales. The difference is quite clear. A garage sale is a bunch of crap you’ve been storing for years and rather than toss it out you try to sell it first. An estate sale usually means someone died and their family already took all the good stuff and are trying to get rid of whatever is left. So, that’s what we did. We dug through a dead person’s stuff.

When looking for estate sales, I only choose the ones in the wealthier neighborhoods. Why the hell would I want to drive into the hood to pick up crap from someone poorer than myself? Rich people usually have good stuff. Usually. Of course, when the person is almost 100, their stuff is pretty damned old and moldy smelling … like a couple of the places we went to. One in Menlo Park and one in Atherton. The Menlo Park one had nicer stuff, like furniture and stuff, while the Atherton one was in a nicer neighborhood in a nicer house.

Here’s the problem with estate sales. They freak me the hell out. I like looking through the stuff, but there’s always this thought in the back of my head that someone probably died in this house and now I’m sifting through their crap. They probably never let anyone sift through their crap when they were alive and suddenly they die and their are signs outside their house directing the general public to enter their house and dig through all their belongings. It’s strange.

Also, it makes me realize how much stuff we buy and store over a lifetime. Records, books, knick-knacks, furniture, papers, etc. that we obtain and then store until we die. These people had a lot of stuff and in the end, the family couldn’t give a shit about it. They probably took all the good stuff for themselves after long battles between family members and this is what was left. Rooms full of useless crap. Kind of sad. You spend your life working to pay off your house and buy stuff and then in the end, your family just comes along and sells the house and it’s contents off to whomever wants it. The houses will probably be torn down and someone else will build their dream and the only evidence that you even existed will be photos and trinkets that your family owns. It’s just strange.

Of course, their loss is my gain because estate sales provide a great resource for getting some really cool stuff for cheap. Nice antiques that a family is trying to get rid of can be had for half of what they’d be worth on the open market. But like I said, the only ones worth your time are the ones in the wealthier neighborhoods. Anything else is just going to be crap.

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