A week's insanity....

Some weeks are a firm reminder of why I chose to live with only a little....My job is to help people.  It is a job I enjoy greatly but in many cases, there is little I can do.

Monday: I visit a large storage unit loaded with items of absolutely no market value...mildewed clothes, rusted pots and pans, broken furniture, Tupperware with no lids.  This is one of four units that have nearly the same items.  Gentleman had claimed "there are some really good things in there".... We check...not a chance.  I recommend a bobcat and a dumpster.  Four units times about the five years each has been a trash receptacle.  That's a lot of rent...get out your calculator...

Tuesday: Visit a home whose interior defies description. My guess is that living conditions are far better in distant third world countries during a famine or infectious disease outbreak.  I can't see the floor... it is covered with an odd conglomeration of old food, clothing, cat hair and ten thousand personal items.  I see half a laptop, about a half dozen remotes, a chair leg....Anything that was of value has been used as a scratching post, a chew toy or is stained or broken.  Looks like a year's worth of frat parties occurred and nobody bothered to clean up after each.....there's nothing salvageable of the five or so items they WANTED to sell.  The seller's felt the other 9,995 items should be scraped off the floor, boxed and transported to their new home because they might need them....Sigh.

Thursday: Visit to a hoarder extraordinaire... A woman who has kept everything she ever bought for the last two decades.  She is aware she has a problem, but seems powerless to rein it in.  Just last week she spent over $3,000 on QVC.  She has three large outbuildings filled with items, many of them never removed from the packaging.  I have to explain that she has grossly overpaid for all the items and there is no hope she can recover an amount even close to the price she paid despite the claims on TV that these items are of "heirloom quality."  Just not on this planet.  She stares at me blankly.  She doesn't understand why this is or that she has fallen victim to the band of thieves that hawk garbage on TV that can be purchased with only four easy payments plus processing and handling.

This is our culture....we are taught that the acquisition of things defines us, makes us worthy.  In the end, it is acquisition that weighs us down and wastes our time and resources.  I come home, still sneezing from cat dander and decades old dust and collapse on the sofa feeling utterly defeated.  The "stuff" has won this week.  It has silently infiltrated our homes and wedged itself firmly in our closets and outbuildings like some unseen squatter.  It is not easily dislodged.  Maybe next week.

Yup...For most people it doesn't look like this.  There's an abundance of CRAP out there...

The "Season."

Ah yes....that season is upon us again.

I started seeing the first Christmas sale hints not long after Labor Day....the sun was shining and if I can recall correctly, I may have been at the beach.

Fortunately, the business of ridding people of things has kept me busy enough to ignore the procession of invented holidays....Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Dollar Taco Tuesday....oh, wait, not that last one.  Facebook posts proclaim..."Only 16 more presents and I'll be done with Christmas shopping."  Funny how folks appear to want that process to end...sort of like cancer treatments.  I've listened to acquaintances lament about how they are dreading spending the holidays with mom, dad and all the belligerent cousins.  Christmas has, in many ways,  become a necessary evil that comes once a year...followed closely by the filing of income taxes.

Yes...Tis the sea-son for re-gift-ing....fa la la la la.... The season of family...giving....of waiting out in the cold at 1AM in front of a big box store.

This year...the statistics are in.  Consumers have spent a record amount on gifts.  More stuff for me to sell I guess.

As I watch the cars line up at the mall entrance, I'm content knowing that my family knows me now.  They don't ask what I want this year.  They know better.  My sister, also a minimalist to some degree has made a pact with me.  We will not exchange gifts.  Our gift to each other this year has been the new places we experienced together.  That's enough for me.  That makes me happy.  Thanks....I have everything I need.

I DO remember the warm feelings associated with Christmas as a kid.  Of course there were wrapped toys....but those were the days before I gave up the childhood practice of wanting everything that looked colorful or fun.  I can't remember what I received but I do remember staying up past my schoolnight bedtime to watch Charlie Brown, Frosty and my hour-long favorite that included colorful characters like Yukon Cornelius and an elf named Herbie who wanted to be a dentist.  I remember mom baking cookies, stringing up miniature lights and the smell of NYC pretzels and chestnuts at the big tree in Rockefeller Center.  The things I received were incidental (not at the time...but I realize they are now.)  It was the experiences that were important.  The smells, sights and tastes ...I remember vividly.  The things...I do not.

Next up...New Years resolutions!  Can I make it past January 15th?

Funny how the original caption of this picture mentioned Christmas shopping being stressful.
Holiday shopping....Meh...

Creep

One of the things I've learned about the accumulation of personal property is that it occurs slowly but incessantly over a long period of time.  Its not like we go from a zen-like empty house to a cluttered disaster in a few weeks.  The stuff sees to creep in and take up residence slowly...hiding in our closets and drawers and perhaps out in plain sight until one day we look around and say..."Where did all this crap come from?"

After coming home last night, passing out from fatigue and then waking up somewhat refreshed this morning, I am suddenly feeling that stuff is making its way back into my space. I'm not happy about it.

My desk is a shambles.  The amine DVD's I picked up at last nights auction for my daughter sit by the TV.  I also picked up a cheap blender since I didn't have one...but I seem to have survived without this bulky piece of kitchen machinery for the better part of a year...what made me suddenly need one...?  I'm looking at the shoes scattered on my floor with utter dismay.  I have six pairs?  Why?  My daughter and I decided to take on a project and build a cool floor lamp that resembles one I saw while vacationing in NYC...Now I have another lamp.  I now see 4 lamps in the living room....  No...I'm not pleased with myself.

Folks that know me think that minimalism comes easy.  Not in our society it doesn't.  Despite the fact that being an auctioneer exposes me to people who have an accumulation problem, which generally keeps me on track....sometimes the fact that items can be purchased for a comparatively small amount of money at auction makes buying them attractive...whether I need them or not.  So...being an auctioneer can be a double edged sword.

Usually, when I look around and find that the state of disarray is intolerable I will begin the periodic eviction process for my unwanted material guests in earnest.  That day is coming soon.  I feel it.

What to cast off....Part 2

Previously, I alluded to some of the ways you can make decisions about what to keep and what to cast off.  After some thought, I realized that the list of things to get rid of kept growing to include a few things I didn't initially think of.

The big stuff....

In our society, ownership of things is a badge that says "I'm successful" or "I've arrived."  One of the items I found folks bragged about most was the ownership of real estate.  I'm not talking about a family home.  I'm referring to anything other than the family home....namely, vacation homes, second homes and rentals.  Now I'm a guy with a love affair for real estate.  The trip to the attorney's closing table on a new parcel charges me up about as much as skydiving for those who like to jump out of perfectly good planes.  I've bought my share of real estate.

As the years ticked by, I realized that ownership wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  Telling friends I owned five houses might have given me a brief charge from a societal point of view, but immediately after uttering the words, I'd remember that I needed to mow a lawn other than my own or had property tax bills due or that a contractor needed to meet me somewhere to replace a leaky water heater that had ruined a tenant's belongings.  Overall, ownership of property can be a headache...a huge one that in hindsight, didn't seem worth it in the long run.

With the real estate meltdown, there exists the temptation to jump into that second home or the vacation chalet in the mountains that you always dreamed of.  I've gone through the thought process...many times.  In the end, I decided against it for several reasons.  First off, by purchasing a vacation home, you've locked yourself into visiting the same place over and over again.  Even if you decide not to visit, there is the underlying thought..."I purchased this expensive home and now I'm not using it."  That's not to say that some people don't fall in love with a location so much, they simply must spend a lot of time there.  For most people, after a few visits, the luster wears off.

Secondly, a home requires maintenance even if you aren't there.  You can close a house down for a year and when you get back there is usually a significant amount to be done in order to get the place up and running again.  This means you are using leisure time for maintenance.  Unless you happen to be wealthy enough to afford a full time groundskeeper in your absence, there will be lots to do upon your return.  Many people make the situation work by renting through an agency while they are absent.  If this works, fine.  But roofs leak, red wine will get spilled on your white sofa by a tenant and AC units fail during the hottest months.  The calls to write a big check will come...inevitably.

When I thought about it, it made more sense to simply rent a place wherever I decided to be.  I'd rather walk in the door and be greeted by a home ready for me to relax and take in the surroundings.  When it was time to go...I could leave the keys somewhere and be on my merry way.  Leave the headache to someone else and increase your flexibility.  Ditch the thought of the vacation home if you are serious about simplifying your life.

Ah...the mountains...again...and again...and again.  I'd love to visit the beach someday.

Where to trim the fat

Items to avoid owning...

1. Single function items.

 Think a Slap-Chop is cool for cutting up veggies?  A chef's knife will take care of that.  Microwave egg cooker?  Flowbee?  Just gimmicks.  There are thousands of products that have only one function, but take up space in a drawer, closet, cabinet or tabletop.  Its OK to cook an egg in a pan and it's OK to cut hair with scissors.  Don't buy single function items.

2.  Stuff that needs batteries...especially toys.

Well...maybe with a few exceptions....:-)  The only thing I own that needs a battery is my remote for the TV.  If you have stuff that needs batteries, you can never own enough of them.  Need two AA's?  You'll surely have 1 "D", a package of "C" and six AAA's.

3.  Big stuff that needs constant maintenance.

Most of us really do need a car but when was the last time you used your snowmobile or your jet ski or your boat.  How many lawn mowers do you need?  Tillers?  Blowers?   I can't tell you how many people have asked me to sell a boat that's been moldering in a corner of the yard, trailer tires dry-rotted, axles frozen.  Too late now.  Should have sold it when the motor actually still ran and the hull wasn't filled with mosquito larvae.

4. Purge your clothing.

If you haven't worn it in a year, get rid of it.  Period.  I know in my closet, the stuff I didn't wear ended up in the back.  I simply took everything halfway down the rack all the way to the back and donated it.  Didn't miss a single item.  Shoes?  How many pairs do you need.  Emphasis on NEED.  We recently cleared an estate where the deceased probably had 500 sweaters.  If he wore one every day for the 100 or so days our climate requires a sweater, it would take 5 years to wear them all....if he wore each once and didn't buy any more.

5. Duplicates.

I've been in houses that had three coffee makers, 5 drills, 100 paint brushes, 1,000 towels and 5,000 twist ties and plastic bags.  Nobody needs that many.  You can only use one at a time, two if you are gifted.  The excuse?  You never know when you might need an extra.  OK...when the day comes that my circular saw dies, the Home Depot is right up the street.  I don't need 5 crappy used ones in the garage "just in case."

6. Miscellaneous accumulating crap.

You don't need to keep your electric bills for 10 years, or your pay stubs or your canceled checks.  Pull all the Christmas stuff out of the attic and get rid of what you don't use.  Have a clear out day.  Everyone has to get rid of stuff.  Tell your kids to get rid of 10 things they choose...or 20.  Put it all in one place then have a yard sale or rent a table at a flea market.  Go out to dinner with the money you make.  Just don't use the money to buy more crap.

Make it a point to analyze the reasons you are keeping things.  If it is sentimental and you don't have it on display or use it, take a picture of it then get rid of it.  Remember...you can't take it with you and even if you tried, you'd need to dig a mighty big hole to hold it all.

How many of these lurk in your cabinets?  50?  100?....and this is just one thing you can get rid of..

You bought...what?

We found it in a dusty corner of the old collapsing garage...a building, that when viewed from a certain angle, looks like an Escher drawing as gravity tugs at its corners.  "I bet someone will buy it" giggles one of our auctioneers...I shake my head.."No way.  Toss it in the burn pile."  Fast forward to three weeks later and that hornet's nest we found in the garage has fetched $20 at auction.

Where does one put it?  Does it make a good centerpiece?  Should we keep it away from the dog?  Are we sure all the hornets are dead...are there any dead ones inside?  Can we turn it into a lamp?

I'm trying to figure out what was going through the mind of the purchaser.  What other sorts of things does this person own?  Ant farms?  Cicada husks?  A stuffed beaver?

At this same sale we managed to sell:  A rusty pile of sash weights, bags of sea shells, lots of broken things.  Twelve years in this business and I'm still astounded at what people want to own and what they will pay to own.  Certainly, the fact that I wouldn't want to own it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't worth owning....by someone else....or maybe, something else is at work here....

Since an auction is a fast paced sale, folks need to make snap decisions about what they want to buy.  They don't have time to think beyond "Oh, that's really cool...I can do something with that."  The same principle is at work when you look at the Snicker's bar sitting in the display at the drugstore checkout.  You know you want it and you have to make a decision right then.  Then, when you have finished jamming it into your mouth you think..."Man, I just had pizza.  I didn't need to eat that."

I bet we can get $10 for it...

Unless it is now actually is a lamp....I'm sure there's a good chance the new owner of that dusty hornet's nest is thinking "What was I thinking!?" every time he/she passes it by in a corner of the garage.  "Can't get rid of it...got twenty bucks in the thing!"  

Be aware of your impulses.

Hey....is that twenty bucks I see up there?

Are things better now?

I love the beach.  I’m thankful to live so close to it and at a latitude that affords me the ability to visit the waves almost all year long.  Something about where land meets sea that coaxes thoughts out of you.  I forget the pressures of everyday life and let the ever changing coastal scenery blot out visions of unpaid bills and home repairs yet undone.  This evening was one of those evenings.  As the sky and clouds melted into pinkish sunset hues… then crimson, a lot went on in my normally cluttered head.

As the light faded, I watched the surfers who happened to be bobbing on the water .  Hoards of tanned, tattoo laden teen and twenty-somethings drop everything for the opportunity to “ride into a barrel.” 

One surfer caught my attention in that he looked to be well into his fifties.  I admire anyone old enough to receive AARP membership offers who can take on an activity that is typically reserved for the young set.  It proves life can be full of activity and fun at just about any age if you happen to be relatively healthy and want it bad enough.

I always thought surfing looked fun, but never felt I was a strong enough swimmer to tackle a sport which requires you to withstand the repeated battering of ocean waves.  I’m also sort of tallish and know that a low center of gravity is an asset in such a sport.  Truth is, I can make excuses all I want.  The bottom line is that my curiosity about surfing faded after some pretty rough spills from a boogie board that resulted in several mouthfuls of sand and shells and a bloody right arm.  It was supposed be fun, but the act of removing sharp bits of salty ocean debris from places it didn’t belong tarnished the experience.

As my walk continued, I thought about the activities I did enjoy.  Hiking, canoeing, biking, certainly nothing "extreme" that involved me jumping off or out of something, but enough to keep me active and (hopefully) healthy enough to avoid taking handfuls of small odd shaped pills each morning.  For now I am in what they call “midlife.”  That period firmly wedged between the drunken party-all-night exuberance of youth and the shuffleboard and early-bird specials of old age.  It is a period of life with makings for many a crisis.  I thought about my generation.. about being a kid in the 70’s, attending college in the 80’s.  In many ways it was better than it is now.

My daughter will be turning nine this year.  She’s growing up in a strange time.  A time of paranoia and technology.  Her iPod is everything.  It must be no more than 18 inches from her at all times or she starts to have anxiety attacks and requests a Xanax.  You can play about a half-million games on it.  That’s not enough for her.  She’s asking how to ‘jailbreak’ it so she can load third party games onto it.  That would make it MUCH cooler.   I started thinking about when I was nine…and then to the speeches my parents gave me about when they were nine.  You know, those “When I was your age, I walked up hill to school, both ways, with no shoes, in the snow, and when I got home my daddy beat me, and I was thankful for it” speeches?

Oh yes, when I was nine….(I’m sure many of you reading this will chuckle, and understand.)

Video games hadn’t been invented yet.  Sometime in the 70’s there was “Pong” and its butt kicking sequel “Breakout.”  Back then, it was nothing short of super cool.  My best friend had the console you hooked to the TV.   Stuff like Pac-Man came years later.  It was a circle that ate dots and everyone loved it.

There were no computers….heck calculators were still in their infancy and they weren’t “pocket” calculators either.  Some were the size of an iPad and they boggled the mind by adding, subtracting, multiplying AND dividing.

No cable TV.  We had a black and white “portable” TV.  It was portable in that it didn’t take three people to move it, just two.  When we turned it on, it needed to warm up before we could see the picture.  To adjust it, we rotated a ring around the channel knob (yes, a knob).  If the picture jumped, my sister just whacked it on the side.  Sometimes that worked.  The picture was often fuzzy, but sometimes we’d fix that by adding a bit of foil to the antenna or standing in a certain position while we touched the foil.  Life was tough.  Saturday morning cartoons had a moral.  Fat Albert and Josie would sing it for us.  Yep…life was a real chore.

We played games on a slab of cardboard called a “board.”  We had chocolate colored shag carpet in the living room.  I would actually lose things in it and our cat could actually hide IN it much like a lion hides in the tall grass of the Serengeti.  And (this one is bad) we even had a wooden rake for it.  My parents insisted we rake the carpet after being in the living room so the deep pile would all lie in one direction.  Our house smelled of sandalwood incense and Santana and Iron Butterfly could always be heard on weekend nights in the family room.

When I was nine, my sister was six and NOT traveling in a car seat by then.  If memory serves me correctly, she was about two when she could ride on the bench back seat of our AMC Javelin.  I vaguely remember her car seat was a hulking tubular steel monster with a bit of foam on the hand rest that came down over her head like the one that secures you before you ride on a roller coaster.  We were able to fight over the invisible line on the back seat of the car while we waited in line to get gas.  On that day only odd numbered license plates could fuel up!

Today, a child needs to be about eighty pounds before being released from the embarrassing prison of a car seat.  I remember my college sweetheart probably weighed about ninety pounds.  Imagine dropping your daughter off at the college dorms for the first time and giving her the car seat in case she joins her friends on a road trip.  That’s where we’re headed.

We played with (and occasionally ingested) nails, frogs and mud and we had no antibacterial hand cream to save us from marauding protozoans-gone-wild.  I think I was selling fireworks to my friends at age 7.  We left home in the morning and came back inside only to eat dinner…all without parental supervision.  None of those child snatchers supposedly hiding in the bushes ever nabbed us.  Must have been all those street-smarts we had.  We rode big metal bikes with no helmets or pads.  Heck, most of us didn’t even have brakes and some had no seats!  You had to stand up to ride!  Nobody seemed to have allergies to peanuts, gluten, dust, water or air.  We got whacked with wooden spoons, belts and bare hands when we got out of line and we didn’t feel the need to hit everyone else because of it.

Yup.  It was way cooler to be a kid back then.  I’d trade all the technology if my daughter could live in the 70’s.  The beach is pretty much the same though….

Download a song?  What the heck is an MP-3?  What planet are you from?

Meltdown

As I sit here poring over the news of another day of financial carnage, it makes me think….  Our nest eggs have had cinder blocks dropped upon them and at the end of the day we throw up our hands and tell ourselves that there’s nothing we can do.  You can’t argue with the market.

News of the stock market troubles is hardly a secret.  It affects nearly everyone.  But there has also been destruction wrought upon other markets.  Markets that aren’t followed closely by CNBC or the pundits who claim to have explanations for everything.

In my little corner of the world, there exists a Market for Personal Property.  It’s a market every auctioneer follows closely and if you roll that whole market and all its respective auctioneers into one big ball, it actually amounts to tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars of sales.  Basically, it is the aggregate market demand for all the things we have in our homes.  TV’s, sofa’s, pots, pans, bicycles, furniture, figurines…you name it.

Over the past decade this market has, with few exceptions, been in steep decline.  Ask any auctioneer who conducts a lot of household and estate sales and he or she will tell you about the “good old days” when an old chest of drawers would bring $250 and a good china set would bring the same amount.  Those days are gone.  Today, those numbers are down 50-75% across the board.  Try swallowing a number like that on Wall Street.

Because the Personal Property Market isn’t followed, nobody realizes how bad it is.  When I explain it, I’m invariably presented with an argument that grandma’s mahogany buffet is certainly “worth more than that.”  No.  It isn’t.  It’s worth what the public is willing to pay for it and nothing more.  Nothing I can do will change that fact or the fact that Bank of America stock lost 20% of its value today.  The market has spoken.  Because nobody reads or regularly hears about the Personal Property Market, the horrific declines in the values of household items at auction aren’t taken seriously. 

When market realities are delivered by a source perceived as credible….like CNN, they are taken to be truths….but I’m just an auctioneer.  I’ve probably sold hundreds of thousands of items of every sort in the local marketplace over the last decade or so.  I’m not on TV….yet.   My words don’t carry the credibility of Neal Cavuto or Maria Bartiromo.  If Personal Property prices are low, then it must be…my fault for not finding the right buyers.  Try using that argument with your stock broker today.

Is this auction really any different from...

This one?  Other than the cool clothes and a few extra computers?

We Did This to Ourselves

It's been awhile since I ranted about something.   

Economy, economy, economy….it’s all we care about.  According to the pundits, there must always be expansion if there is to be happiness.  Contraction indicates misery.

I listen to friends tell me about how bad things are out there.  People can’t find jobs.  Nobody seems to have any money lately. Businesses are sucking wind.  Ours isn’t immune.  In the past several years we’ve watched the average market price for everyday items fall precipitously at auction.  The decline as been so steep, we now have a rather large list of items we won’t even allow through the front door due to the fact that they won’t sell for enough to justify using our valuable real estate to display them.  It’s bad out there.

My take is that we did this to ourselves.  Our free market economy encourages consumption.  That is….buying stuff, using it up, throwing it away, then buying more…..infinitum.  Marketers take pride in getting each and every one of us to buy more stuff.  Our houses are filled with it.  If we replace our kitchen cabinets with white ones this year, there’s no question that next year’s color will be anything but white.  Anyone who is anyone can’t have outdated cabinets.  Call the contractor. 

We sell homes all the time.  Recently, we sold one that had perfectly usable…everything.  It was just “outdated.”  The buyers whined about how many thousands it would take to upgrade the home.  Functionality has become irrelevant.  What matters in our society is how it LOOKS, not how well it functions.  We’ll replace solid wood cabinets with particle board ones if they LOOK more modern.  How’d that happen?  How did we get so shallow?  More than half the people on this planet would just like something to EAT or a place to get out of the cold and rain…We rip out perfectly good fixtures and cabinets so our friends won’t talk about how cheap and behind the times we are.  But getting back to my point…It’s the pursuit of all the stuff that requires an ever increasing amount of money.  We demand pay raises and minimum acceptable wages because we feel we’re entitled to new cabinetry, new cars, new clothes and a flat screen TV.  It’s the American Way.

Outside of America, wants and needs are more modest…requiring less capital.  When any four walls and a roof will do for today, the worry is not a pay raise, but rather any job that will bring in enough to provide the ability to subsist.  Jobs are going away because we live in a global economy where people will work for $1 an hour or even $1 a day.  Why pay the union guys $37.50 an hour with paid 5 week vacation, double overtime and mandatory health benefits when you can get the job done for $1 per hour and nothing extra?  In many places, people will bow at your feet for $1 an hour.

It’s easy for us to say that people who work for such wages are exploited….and there’s no question that many workers ARE exploited, but we are so darned used to the big numbers, we can’t understand how anyone, anywhere would work for the little numbers.  As a result, companies are abandoning high cost labor resources to utilize the less expensive sources.  That’s the way it is.

If it were your company, and you had to answer to shareholders, what would you do?

The relentless pursuit of stuff, economic expansion forever, and bigger things had gotten us into this mess. If everyone just wanted less and wasn’t concerned about what color the cabinets are, we’d need less money, we’d be under less pressure and we might actually be able to work for a wage that would keep us competitive.  Our desire for material things is becoming our undoing.  It’s not the government, it’s not the immigrants or the folks in China, it’s us.  

Time to take a look in the mirror and ask some big questions about where we are going.

We feel entitled to drive this...

When plenty of people in other countries would be happy with this...

You found WHAT? Cover your eyes if easily offended! I'm serious.

" You must see some interesting things in your line of work" an inquisitive auction customer says to me.  Indeed I do.  Sometimes I see things I don't WANT to see.

I can tell an awful lot about a person when I enter a house and sift through their belongings.  I get to view it all...especially when the seller is deceased  and we are told to go through EVERYTHING in order to properly inventory and assess value.  So I offer a caveat for the living.  If you got something you don't want anyone to find, you'd better bury it in the yard because if an executor sends our firm to handle the disposition of a deceased individual's assets....I'm going to find everything that person never wanted anyone to find.  Ask me...I'll tell you stories of things pulled from dark corners of closets that we didn't have the heart to turn over to any family member.  Lets just say there'd be a great deal of awkwardness.

I realize that nobody knows when they will get "sent for."  By the time the end is near, most people aren't very mobile so most often family and friends end up taking care of little things like bringing clean clothing and making sure the cat is fed.  It isn't often that someone's dying aunt pulls a family member over and whispers that they need to go to her house and get rid of that crumpled bag in the old luggage in the bedroom closet because it contains...well...a few potentially embarrassing things.  A riding crop and a leather mask.... maybe?  Something else?

It doesn't happen like that.

Nobody says anything about it.  Invariably, we find it...after the fact.

I wasn't surprised to find out that most people...old and young have dirty little secrets.  We're all a little debauched now and then...C'est normal.  Charity workers, dedicated parents, business leaders...everyone.  Believe me, I know.

So the next time you reach into the deep recesses of some drawer or behind the shelf unit in the den or even into the little cedar box that you hide in the rafters above the ceiling tiles....remember that someone, someday, will likely find whatever it is you are reaching for if you happen to leave this world without it.  It might be someone like me, which would be good since part of my job description involves being sensitive to the bereaved.  I'll make sure nobody cries more than they have to.  Promise.

Just something to think about......

No matter how well you think it might be hidden....think again.

I've gone and complicated my life a bit...a short renovation chronicle.

I used to love messing around with real estate.  I've been a broker for 18 years and have probably purchased and renovated at least that many properties.  Then, at some point I decided that I'd had enough.   Dealing with multiple properties meant dealing with mounds of assorted utility bills, maintenance issues and tenants who have a nervous breakdown if a door hinge develops an annoying squeak.  "It's so irritating and I really feel that since it is a maintenance issue, you should come and deal with it.  Can you come today?"  I'd wince and croak "Have you heard of WD-40? Get to know it....along with duct tape."

So...three years ago, I sold the last property I owned other than my personal residence.  Suddenly life got simpler and I absolutely relished it.  But real estate people are like restauranteurs.  No matter how irritated and pissed off our ventures make us, we can't seem to stay out of the grinder.  We secretly crave the feeling we get when our lives are turned upside down.  There must be some sick pleasure in yelling on the phone at a food purveyor who can't fill an order correctly or a tenant who is tardy with rent one too many times.

In the back of mind, I saw the real estate meltdown coming.  It simply wasn't possible to see 15%+ annual price gains forever, so when the disaster struck I was already sitting on the sidelines well on my way to a full simplification of my life.  In reality, the massacre of the local real estate market was far worse than anyone could have expected.  Foreclosures piled up and sellers went into panic mode, seizing whatever opportunity they had to make a deal with even lukewarm buyers.

Still an investor at heart, I couldn't help but watch closely as prices continued to tumble.  The few investors that had survived the mayhem were now poised to make once-in-a-lifetime deals....and they did.  The prospect of jumping back into the market suddenly became more than a passing thought.

For those who don't know, a recent sequence of events has resulted in my living in a wonderful little rental space in town.  It is small and cozy and perfect.  My dwelling provides me an excellent opportunity to test my resolve at living a (sort of) minimalist lifestyle.....but....I'm a real estate OWNER at heart.  As much sense as it makes to rent from a standpoint of maintenance and simplicity, I have this gnawing need to own my home...to have control over renovations, layout and choices of paint color.

To make a long story short,  I decided to toss some low ball offers into the ring to see what might happen.  "No, no, no...don't do it...not now." I thought, but apparently, no offer is too ridiculous in this market and against my better judgement, I'm now the owner of a cute 1100 square foot 1940's Sears and Roebuck house.  As of today, I've owned it for exactly 12 days and in that time an awful lot has happened.

The real estate fiasco has all but shut down new home construction.  Tradesman and sub contractors now occupy their time watching Judge Judy and doing odd jobs for neighbors so there's no shortage of eager folks with hammers, trowels and saws who'd jump at the chance for a substantial job.  As a result, in 12 days....the entire plumbing system has been replaced, the kitchen and bath have been tiled, and a new roof graces the upper section of the house.  What remains is some electrical work, an interior repaint and having the wood floors, which for years remained buried under ugly green carpet, refinished.

In better times, banging out these jobs at such a pace would have been impossible.  Wait times for the best and most skilled tradesman were often measured in months.  Now they ask if they can start tomorrow.  Personally, I enjoy working in a house where there's lots of banging, sawing and the occasional low thud of heavy construction material  or equipment hitting the floor.  I join in, crowbar in hand, removing crappy shelving or tearing up old tack strip from the hardwood.  I used to do a lot of the big stuff, but I'm no tradesman.  Although the results were typically satisfactory, it took weeks and even months longer than a skilled professional would take to knock it out.  I've since learned that time is money...and in the end, paying to get the job done quickly might actually save a few bucks in the long run.  Certainly now, more than ever, is a time you can get nearly anything done quickly.

First step....get all those old appliances out of the way...

Deep green carpet?  Umm....NOT!  It goes bye-bye.

Next step..removal of vanity made of "oatmeal" (particle board) and the fake tile board.

Someone was smoking crack when they chose this color.  Can you say "Kilz?"

Cement board going down where the cigarette burned linoleum was.

Off comes the old roof.  Dry forecast for a few days...

Hey, how'd the roof get in there?

Much better.

Not a bad result in the bathroom either.  The glass tile border was just a last minute idea that worked pretty well.

Gorgeous floors, but someone's dog had an incontinence problem.  Let there be big industrial, high amperage sanding equipment....

New lid.

And...the finished product!  Actually...this is where I'm living now.  Pretty darned nice and right in the middle of downtown.  I'm reluctant to leave....and I might not! 

My goal is to have the entire project finished in 30 days.  But then what?  Honestly, the jury is still out on this one, but I have several options.  Some have suggested that I break my lease and move into the house.  Financially, this would be a pretty good move but I actually LIKE where I'm living right now and I'm not in a hurry to move again.  The most likely outcome will be that I rent the house to a tenant.  The going rental rate for the area will more than cover any monthly expenses for the house and the positive cash flow will offset my current rent.  A final option is to simply flip the house when it is finished.  Flip?  In this market?  Actually a lot of people are doing it.  You just have to buy REALLY low.  Even after the renovation costs there's room for a reasonable profit even if I price the house very low to attract a buyer.  From a simplification standpoint, this would be the best option.  Sell, simplify and invest the profit.  I admit it's mighty tempting, but part of me still envisions moving in after my lease is up.  I suppose in the coming months, the best path will fall into focus.  In the meantime I've filled my life once again with sheetrock dust, construction dumpsters and coming home encrusted with the dirt and grime of full fledged home renovation.

What's it worth to you?

What's it worth?

This is the question I am asked most often.  An understandable question, but I dislike it.

I've been an auctioneer and appraiser for about a dozen years and have been messing about with antiques for another half-decade more than that.  When I am asked the "question" the honest answer is "I don't know."

Sure I can sometimes come up with a ballpark figure, but that is about it.  What all these years of auctioneering has taught me is that something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it...nothing more and nothing less.  Forget guide books, appraisals and Antiques Roadshow.  If someone tells you your mother's old rocker is worth $500, they had better have their checkbook out, otherwise that statement of opinion isn't worth anything.  Truth is, I could look you right in the eye and tell you a discarded egg carton is worth twenty bucks, but if I'm not willing to hand over a crisp Jackson, my words are meaningless.

It makes perfect sense that a potential seller wants to have an idea what sorts of numbers to expect after an auction.  Will it be beans or filet mignon while out to dinner?  I really don't know until we have all those bodies in the gallery, wallets open, ready to spend.  To mention specific numbers is professional suicide.  If I say 100 and the market says 60, I look like crap.  You can't argue with the market.  Still, I am prodded and poked, my facial expressions watched closely for a hint.  "I don't want to give it away now" barks my potential client. "I don't want to give it away either" I retort.  My earnings are tied to my ability to sell an item.  The more money I can pry from a bidder's hands, the more money I make, but I can't make miracles when the market scoffs at an item.

During this process it becomes easy to determine if a seller is too emotionally attached to his or her belongings.  If someone is too enamored with stuff, I will never deliver a number that is big enough to satisfy the client.  We could have 300 bidders and fetch record breaking prices and I'll get responses like "It had to be worth more than that. My sister's husband's brother's cousin offered me (insert ridiculous number here) for it ten years ago. I guess you just don't get the right people at your auctions."  Somewhere out there is a legion of folks, their pockets stuffed with money running around the country offering random people greatly inflated prices for their junk.  They make their offers and then they're gone...like the wind.  By the time I show up, this magical buyer who by the way was ALWAYS turned down, is no longer available to make a purchase.  "Oh, he moved."  "Well, she died in '97." Always something.

After years of this sort of thing, I realized that when you want to sell something, just sell it.  Don't look back.  Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.  If you got to use it and enjoy it, don't expect to get more than you paid for it...or even half.  I know people who have been dragging around heavy assets for years trying to get the very best price.  They're sure they've got something special and nobody seems to recognize it.  One day, the right person will come along and....Yeah, OK.  Tell your family to dig an extra big hole when you die so they can toss in all your beloved items.  Maybe someone will pay what you want in the afterlife.

This week, some more of my (now former) possessions found new homes.  Some sold for great prices, some didn't, but it doesn't matter.  In the end, it all evens out.  The windfalls usually negate the disappointments and it all works out.  eBay and Craigslist have huge audiences and you'll know fairly quickly if you've priced something too high.  You might get inquiries, but nobody will be serious.  Ignore what others are asking for similar items.  What matters is the price that something SOLD for.

During these last couple of years as I have made my physical load smaller, I have sold items at at my own auctions, some on eBay, and a few on Craigslist.  I have never waited more than a week to get an item sold.  If I got no responses, the price came down.  If I sold at auction, there was no minimum.  Each time money changed hands, I have felt freer, less weighed down.  It's hard to put a price on that. Surprisingly, the dollars have added up to a not-so-insignificant amount.  Over the last year the tally has topped five figures, often coming $50 or $100 at a time.  That's how much stuff I used to own and I didn't consider myself to be a packrat.  Far from it.  So here I am, all those dollars later, even happier than I was when I owned and toted around all those things.

Surprisingly,  I actually have very little left to sell...I only have some necessities and a few of the things I truly love.  There's little to worry about.  If someone broke into my place and stole everything, I'd be able to replace the majority of it in a week.  I don't need insurance riders anymore.  Now the new challenge will be to maintain a life with less material things.  There will be temptation and I will occasionally cave but I'm ready to ignore the calls to materialism and start living.  Look around....are you?

What's more important?  Going home without all the stuff or loading it up, taking it home and dragging it into the garage because you couldn't get a few extra bucks?

Putting it into Practice

Geez....a month to the day since my last post.  An awful lot has happened.  Without getting into detail, there has been a great deal of last minute change, not the least of which involves my relocating to a smaller dwelling.  I sit in my new space as I type, running over the events of the past few weeks.  Interesting is that I have had to put into practice all those words about material possessions I've been writing.  It has been a fascinating exercise to say the least.  I've finally been forced to live by my own words.  That's not a bad thing.

With the recent changes, I decided that perhaps I should write more about my own experiences as they relate to the things I own, or perhaps what I may decide to not own at some indefinite point in the future.

Before the move I had to assess what was coming and what wasn't.  Some of that process centered around the sheer bulk of an item.  Considering that I move a lot of heavy things for a living and often utter expletives while trying to manipulate  non-geometric, unevenly weighted monstrosities down winding stairways and narrow openings, I wasn't about to swear at my own idiocy while grimacing under an object with the approximate mass of a Volkswagen that I happened to own and couldn't leave behind.  That said, I decided I would take no more than 4 or 5 "large" pieces.  The others needed to go.

First out the door to someone else's home was my monolithic grandfather clock.  Although I loved the grand piece, I rarely wound it and actually took great pleasure watching someone else wheezing under its great weight.  In many ways, watching it go was cathartic.  I no longer actively collect clocks and it was time to let a bunch of them go to new homes.  In the end I took five with me, two of which were no larger than a cigar box.  The five would be my remaining connection to my collecting days and all functioned well enough to be wound and used regularly.

As for the furniture...everything needed a purpose.  Nothing could be sentimental or merely decorative.  The heaviest piece chosen was a tall Mission bookcase which could serve a variety of storage purposes since I was would be living in a pre Civil War home that had little storage.  Although heavy, it was narrow and would not have to be manipulated through doors.  To deal with seating, I toted in a European design sofa and a chair and to hold my TV, there would be a need for the low slung cabinet on which it had been sitting.  My office desk was the most irritating of the pieces in that it needed to be disassembled into pieces in order to get it out of my old office.  Every time we thought it would go out the door, a new appendage would jam against a wall or door frame and out would come the screwdriver to amputate it.  Everything else could be moved solo or packed in a box.  This was going to be a minimalist move no matter what.

It was now time to whittle back everything else so that a couple of trips with the pickup would be all that was required to finish the job....more on that later.

I'll MAKE it fit.

The Cost of Owning Things

I never thought about a lot of things I purchased once I owned them.  I figured the amount I paid at the store was the cost of the item.  Turns out that is not entirely true.

It's easy to illustrate the ongoing costs of things by using some obvious examples.  How about cars and homes?  These are big ticket items that cost far more than what we pay initially.  They incur costs like maintenance, taxes and insurance.  At one point, I would have never dreamed of renting a property to live in, but after thinking about it....what is the total cost of all those taxes and yearly insurance renewals?  How about the yard tools I need and the time it takes to groom the property so it doesn't get overgrown?  Oh, I'll need a shed for the yard tools, gasoline and yearly maintenance for the mower.  My HVAC?  That needs maintenance too.  Forget pride of ownership for a moment and focus on sheer time and dollars.

The big things are easy, but what about all the small things we overlook?  Sure, we need things like chairs, magazine racks and tables to outfit our homes and it's hard to imagine these things have an ongoing cost to own them.  They do.  It doesn't become evident until we have a quantity of items that is greater than our ability to manage them.  What the hell does that mean?  It means we have more things than we know what to do with.  I guarantee nearly everyone reading this can find a fair quantity of things around the house that have been upgraded, rendered obsolete, not used due to loss of interest, not used due to not having replacement parts or batteries, has no current purpose but we think it might later....

In aggregate these are the things that make a modest home feel smaller.  These are the things that force us to park the car outside because they are filling up the garage.  When the car is outside, it is exposed to the elements and depreciates.  That's a cost.  When our things fill up space we use for living, it costs us to heat them, cool them, move them, deal with them.

I've said this before....Everyone should have to relocate every 18 months or so.  The task of gathering up all of our crap and boxing it is a sobering one.

Fairly frequently, when a client calls us to sell items, we will find boxes in closets, garages and attics that have been moved multiple times from home to home and never opened.  You can't tell me it didn't cost anything to move it each time.  "What's in the box?" I ask.  "Oh that's my aunt's punch bowl set.  We've moved it from house to house because I keep thinking I might use it someday.  We had it in storage for a year when we moved from Indianapolis, but now I guess it needs to go."  Multiply that story by the dozens or even hundreds of items that might fall into that category for a single family.  Now get out your calculator.  Owning stuff costs us.

Open those closets, crawl into the attic and be ruthless with your things.  If you haven't seen it in more than a year....eBay, Craigslist, Salvation Army.  Less is cheaper.

Get it out of the garage.  It's costing you.

Can Fantasy Become Reality

Of late, I have gotten off track and have been spewing a great deal about our country's obsession with consumerism.  Back to some minimalism.

Lately my job has been taking me into some interesting homes filled with unusual and treasured items.  I stand back and witness the struggle people have with releasing the things that have been part of familiar surroundings.  It has forced me, over and over, to take stock of my own life and the tangible belongings that are part of it.

The title of this post deals with a fantasy.  Specifically, the one I have been having.  No, no...it has nothing to do with blondes or foreign beaches.  Actually, now that I think of it......  Aaaanyway, the fantasy I'm talking about involves the nearly complete release of all items cluttering up my life.  I imagine myself in a small, airy, modern, urban flat maybe 450 square feet or so.  I have only the necessities.  It is a comfortable little place and with me are a few carefully chosen items around that make me happy.  I have my laptop, a few books and perhaps a compact stereo that is easily hooked into my iPod or Pandora, my knife kit, cookbooks and some good pots and pans.  The rest are incidentals and not much more.  Most of life will revolve around experiences and not things.

As I glance around at my current life, one thing stares me in the face.  For many years I collected and restored antique clocks and timepieces.  Over time, I have amassed a significant collection. This isn't a hoarder type collection of anything and everything that has to do with clocks but rather, in my humble opinion, a nice aggregation of styles and types.  I took the time to refine the collection so that I had no duplicates and most of the items were genuine, unadulterated, antique originals.  They number nearly thirty in all and some are quite large and imposing.  Although all the clocks are scattered throughout the house, they still take up a lot of room.  There is no earthly way they could all be part of the minimalist fantasy.

I've been grappling all week with how many I should sell to scale back.  To me they're all attractive and many have long, interesting stories behind them, but when I moved to a smaller home some years ago, I was unable to set up my hobby and repair shop.  My new digs were simply too small and I now had a family that required my attention.  My equipment is now long gone and maintaining the collection mechanically is now much more difficult.  Now I understand the decisions that people must make after they've called on me to clear things out for them.  By picking up the phone, they have made a commitment to themselves to release material things.  Sometimes the decision is made for them due to monetary issues, other times it is simply a matter making life less weighty.  Folks in the latter category have a tougher time making decisions for obvious reasons, but when they do, I admire them for it.

I have reasons to keep them all, but I won't.  Which ones stay and which ones go?  I decided that the collection should be reduced by at least two thirds.  There's no particular reason for the mathematics here, just a desire to significantly cut back.  My decision is that I will pare back to ten or less, most of which will be smaller items that can fit together on a shelf or niche somewhere.  Because I see them every day, it is hard not to flip-flop on which to keep.  The solution was to somehow make my decisions final.  I grabbed a bunch of adhesive labels and told myself that once a decision was made to sell an item, it was to be marked with a label that would not be removed.  Of course I could change my mind, but a needed something symbolic that would keep me in line.  The labels would be fine.  I set to work.

As I stood in front of each clock, running through my history with it, it is easy to see how letting go can be hard.  Things have associations....some warmer or more personal than others.  When we make a conscious decision to let something go, we worry that we might lose or forget the association...the story that brought it to us in the first place.  Life is full of stories.  There will be plenty in the future that might revolve around other objects.  It doesn't mean I have to own them.

Long ago I was told that we never truly "own" old or historic items like antique clocks, we simply pay for the right to take care of them, to have them in our presence, to add to their collective history...then at some point, we pass them on to the next set of caretakers who will hopefully receive satisfaction and joy from them and preserve them until the next "owner" comes along.

It's time.  I've used twenty one labels.

It has been an honor to have cared for you and preserved your history.  I've received joy from your presence.  It is time for you to do the same for your next owner.

Manufactured Collectibility

It's the expression I use when I refer to anything manufactured and marketed with the implication that someday it will worth more than it was purchased for.

We've seen the ads, read the catch phrases and stared with dilated pupils at Certificates of Authenticity.

For more than a decade, I have fielded calls from excited prospects bubbling over about mom's cache of collector plates and dad's precious collection of Franklin Mint presidential medals plated in genuine 24 karat gold.  I'm obligated as a professional to tell them the truth.  The truth they don't want to hear about how they've fallen prey to slick marketing techniques and that their ship is not about to come in.

The scene replays itself over and over with minor changes in detail....  "Hello...my aunt passed away last month and she left me a complete set of pewter collector spoons she slowly purchased over 9 years.  Each month a new one was released and she purchased it so she could have the complete set.  They aren't made anymore and she has them all.  Each one is themed after a different movie star and many of those stars are now dead so the ones with dead stars on them must be worth more.  She kept the boxes and certificates with them.  I think each one was $39.95 when it was released and she has 108 of them with the little cabinet that holds them all.  I have no need for them and quite honestly my car has been acting up and I'd like to get a nice new car.  What do you think I can get for them?"

I take a deep breath and pull the standard response from my mental filing cabinet.  I start with the normal apology..."I'm sorry, but they really aren't worth very much.  A set like that might bring $40-60 at auction."

I wait.  Silence on the other end.  It's coming...I know it is.................................."For the whole SET?"

"Yes, for the whole set."

"But she paid thousands for them and she has them all.  None are missing.  I would consider taking half of what she paid since I really need the money."

My quick mental calculation indicates that this person is looking to net $2,000 for a set worth $60.

I wait a moment...the anger is coming next.  I try to explain... "I know she paid a lot for it, but there are thousands of collector spoon sets out there.  Everyone knows someone that has one.  Unfortunately, nobody is seeking them out and they aren't rare.  The company that sold them to her hooked her by saying they might be collectible.  They really aren't.  You won't get much for them."

"Sixty dollars......for the whole collection?!!  That's ridiculous.  That's probably what each one is worth now.  Are you marketing to the right people?  The real collectors must not be coming to your auctions.

The attempt at insulting me fails.  This person called me, not the other way around.  "I'm sorry, but I can't control demand for these sorts of things.  I'd love to get you two grand, but it won't happen...."  I close with another gratuitous apology and wonder how many additional phone calls will be made to consignment shops, jewelry stores and pawn shops before reality sets in.  It often feels like my job is to dash people's dreams.  Nobody wants to admit they were fooled.

Actually, I'm used to these exchanges it but it doesn't change the fact that such a large percentage of our population gets sucked into statements like "...bound to be an heirloom collectible...these are made in limited numbers so get yours today...comes with its own printed certificate and display box....a strict limit of three per buyer since we will break the mold after this production run...collect them all....this is an exclusive offering to collectors only, so call now....each one is clad in real sterling silver."

If I can save one person from the same fate as my typical imaginary caller, my time at the keyboard will be worth it.

Before I break it down, I'll offer a disclaimer.  There ARE some things that are manufactured to be collectible that actually are worth something.  Usually not a boatload, but something.  Some examples include coin sets from the US Mint (not from the Federal National Government Collectors Mint or the Franklin Mint....just the US Mint.  The one that makes our money.)  Some older Hummels have value (although those have come down, but Hummels date back to the '30's) and a few other things, but 99% of "collectibles" manufactured as such are not worth the material they are made of.

If you think about it, most of the valuable collectibles WEREN'T manufactured with that in mind.  Take the earliest Barbies.  Nobody knew in the 50's that Barbie would be so popular that she would still be around a half century later.  The first ones were just like any other new doll that comes onto the market.  It is only the fact that she became so popular that makes the earliest Barbies worth anything.  Of course the manufacturer capitalized on this by offering "collectible" Barbies decades later.  These were never intended to be played with, but rather something to accumulate numbers of for collectible value.  Most aren't worth more than a few dollars and aren't as rare as most people think they are.  Because the early Barbies were actually played with, few survived in good condition.  This is part of what makes them so rare and valuable.

Lets look at it from a marketer's point of view.  I have this great idea for a collectible.....Limited edition lighters with famous race car drivers embossed on them.  To sell them, I have to manufacture them first.  This takes a lot of money in designing, mock-up, tooling, image licensing and final manufacture plus advertising.  For something to be rare, there can't be an awful lot of them floating around, right?  But how can I make any money if I only sell a few before ceremoniously smashing the molds with a sledge hammer.  The answer is, I have to sell a lot of them!  To get around low numbers needed for true rarity, I use terms like "limited edition."  Can a run of 10,000,000 be a limited edition?  Of course it can.  Do I have to number each one with its exact number?  No.  I can put the number 3,205 on twenty of them if I want (as long as I distribute them widely.)  How can I imply desirability?  By including a Certificate of Authenticity.  This implies that people try to counterfeit these items, so be sure you're getting a real one and not some cheap fake.  I can paint a bunch of rocks gold and include a Certificate of Authenticity with each one stating that each is an original creation by me, clad in lustrous gold.  I'll have my sister sign the certificate and include a lovely collector box.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  Does any of it make my rocks valuable?  It's hype.

When I see the commercials on TV and the presentations for this crap on QVC, I want to hack.  I know somewhere there's a middle aged aunt or someone's father on a fixed income thinking "If I collect these and give them to my kids, they'll have something worth money down the road."  What they'll have is a bunch of metal discs stamped with someone's face on them.  Rest assured there will be thousands of other people with those worthless discs that cost them bunch of money as well.  Don't fall into the trap.

The next time you're sitting in front of the tube with a bag of chips and a commercial for gold plated commemorative stamps comes on and you see suited men removing a pile of them from a vault while telling you how valuable they will likely be, watch for the small print on the bottom of the screen and remember that if you stored your loose change in a vault, it wouldn't make it worth more than face value unless you could convince someone that it was SPECIAL change.

Spread the word.

We've got a million of 'em.  Now all we have to do is figure out how to get suckers....I mean collectors, to buy them.

Invented Days of (shopping) Importance

Well....it's over.  In looking back, here's my big observation.

Grandparents Day,  Father's Day, Black Friday and now Cyber Monday.  (Cue commercials for After-Christmas sales and New Years Doorbusters.)  There seems to be no limit to the invention of special days designed to coax us into spending money.  Although Father's Day and even Grandparent's Day are officially celebrated as days to recognize the loving members of our families, there's little doubt that those particular days are well supported and promoted by the retail community as days we need to show our love by purchasing crap.

If you love your father, you'll get him an iPod.  That's how we show our love, right?

Although, we knew the designation of Black Friday as the day when retailers finally turned a profit for the year (being in the "black") it had never taken on the significance that it currently has.  I used to work in retail and Black Friday was never the busiest shopping day from a revenue standpoint.  The final panicked days before Christmas blew Black Friday away when it came to how much was in the till.  It's different now.

People camp out in the freezing cold for a chance to snatch a fleeting bargain at 3AM.  If there was ever a carrot dangled in the faces of consumers, it is the prospect of saving $100 on a laptop if you come show your allegiance to consumerism by dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night and joining the worship at the local Best Buy Megachurch parking lot.  Bring your own Dunkin Donuts hot coffee.

As if being led around by our noses with all of this Black Friday bullshit wasn't enough, now there is a new shopping event.  Cyber Monday.  The name of the event itself brings thoughts of illicit activity like cyber-sex and cyber-crime.  Cyber Monday is the answer to those who don't buy into the middle-of-the-night shopping stampedes.  Now you don't even have to put your clothes on.  Just sit in front of the computer, scratch yourself and spend, spend, spend.  There's apparently no end to this nonsense.  I can only imagine what the next invented shopping day will be.  Update...there IS a new event!  Apparently "Free Shipping Thursday" has garnered enough attention to become an event all its own.  I'm anxiously awaiting the announcement of a long lost holiday of giving that is being resurrected from the folkways of some clandestine culture.  My guess is that it will fall some time between Memorial Day and Independence Day in order to even out the annual cash flow.  Mark my words.....

Not to be a curmudgeon, I'm for businesses being successful.  Heck I have my own business so I completely understand.  It's too much though.  Too much useless junk that gets tossed in a closet or re-gifted.  Too much emphasis on having, buying, upgrading.  What little happiness we get from the newly purchased usually fades before the packaging is out the door.

Last year I posted a note on Facebook about Black Friday.  People were getting killed in stampedes...they were dying under the feet of people who simply had to get the best deals.  That's the sort of thing that happens when people are trying to get out of a burning building that doesn't have enough exits, not in front of a Wal Mart that has toaster ovens on sale.  How did we get to the top of the food chain again?

The whole thing is exacerbated by the media who show video clips of women in stores, hair askew, breathing heavily exclaiming how much they "love the rush", "the pursuit of the bargain."  In the background, whizzing past are shoppers with carts stacked high with consumer electronics.  The scene is reminiscent of natural disaster stories where residents are looting...getting stuff for free.  I can't help but think the similarities are intentional.  During Black Friday, things are...well... practically free.....so get out there and loot.  All of it has become a well orchestrated herding of people and their credit cards to the check out aisle.

Are you freaking kidding me?  Who chooses this over sleeping in a warm bed?