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| Do you love America???? Do you blanket yourself in patriotism? Snuggling with this is like snuggling with George Dubya. |
Tired of the club scene? Not enough money to go out of town, but still want something fun to do this weekend? Forget the public golf courses, forget the afternoon matinees. The hot new weekend activity? Antiquing.
What is antiquing, you ask? Is it a verb? Did you just take a random noun and add an “-ing” on the end?
Quite the contrary. As I found out in my
recent adventures, antiquing is a verb, which very loosely translated
means “driving to a small town in the middle of nowhere and looking at
old crap.”
My antiquing adventure began a few weeks
ago in Detroit. My grandpa, who would very well be a contender for
hoarders, decided he wanted to unload some of his “valuable antiques”
and raise a little cash in the process.
Now my grandpa has never been what you call
a ‘purveyor of antiquities.’ Whereas he has enough money to go to
Greece, he prefers Caesars palace, or for that matter, the inside of any
casino or gambling establishment. When I was younger, he would tell us
at night that he was going to go feed his horses. I assumed he went to
a farm and fed horses. (I have no idea where I thought there was a
fucking horse farm in the middle of Detroit). What he meant was that he
went and lost his money betting on horses.
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| This is the crappiest fire hazard ever. |
So it should come as no surprise that I doubted the authenticity of his antique collection.
“I have lots of good stuff!” he shouted. (All old people shout. They’re used to watching O’Reilly and shouting over him.)
“Seriously?” I asked. “Like what? The
twelve statues of the Virgin Mary, the life-sized portraits of Jesus, or
the frames pictures of the pope?” (His house in one Catholic votive
candle away from resembling a Mexican taquieria.)
“I have this truck! This is from when I was a little boy,” he said, producing a rusty toy truck.
“Christ Grandpa, I don’t want this! There’s rust flaking all off of it.”
“It’s authentic.”
“OK, grandpa, I hate to break it to you, but your parents were poor immigrants. It’s not like they bought you the best stuff.”
“You can get a lot of money for it.”
“Fine,” I relented, wrapping it in plastic
and placing it in my trunk; meanwhile trying to remember when I had my
last tetanus shot.
I should point out that I was not alone- my
man was with me. He was content to sit on the couch and watch TV, but I
needed help carrying the valuable antiques up from the basement.
“This is a vase,” I pointedly said as he handed me a gaudy pink urn.
“It’s from China. Aunt Helen got it.”
Had Aunt Helen ever been to China? Not a chance. If it didn’t involve a cruise ship, I doubted she had travelled there.
After an hour, Matt had hauled vases, an
iron, dishes, plates, and silverware up the stairs. (Had we kept
digging, I’m pretty sure we would have found Hoffa.)
“That silverware’s real high class,” he said, pointing to the box I had.
“When did you get it?” I asked, opening the box up and looking at the paperwork.
“Your aunt Helen got it. She paid $500 for it.”
“No she didn’t,” I said. “Here’s the receipt. She paid $32.50 for it. In 1957.”
Matt and I went downstairs to get paper to wrap our treasures in. I opened up a drawer in grandpa’s desk looking for tape.
I found the Detroit White Pages. From 1992-1995.
Seriously.
I took the phone books upstairs and was about to tear them apart when he shouted, “Stop!”
“What? These are like 20 years old!”
“I still use them!” he protested.
By this point, Matt was trying to contain his laughter.
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| WHAT THE F****? |
“OK, first off, you do realize they make
new phone books every year, don’t you? Second, this is Detroit. Most
of these places are burned down or out of business.”
“I still use them. Put them back.”
Fine.
“Oh, I have this…but it’s worth a lot of money, so don’t lose it, OK?” he asked, heading back to his bedroom.
All right, this might be getting good. Jewelry? Diamonds?
No chance.
He handed me a silver dollar-sized coin. It had beveled edges, a dragon, and some Japanese writing.
“This is from 416 in China,” he said, showing me where it clearly said “416.”
“That’s impossible. First, it has beveled
edges. Second, how would they know it was 416 over there? And ‘yen’
wasn’t the currency back then.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
OK, he got me. But I’m sure it wasn’t. I agreed to take the stupid coin.
Matt and I left, the trunk loaded down with junk that would probably en up at Goodwill.
A week later, due to bad life decisions, I
arrived in Iowa to visit my husband’s family. It blistering hot- 117
with the heat index. Perfect day to stay indoor and watch the Law and
Order: SVU marathon on ION.
But I had other ideas.
“Hey Mrs. B, isn’t there some place around here that buys antiques and shit?” I asked his mom.
“Oh yes, there’s Antique City, it’s-“
Of course she’d know about antiques. She
is a nice 55-year-old schoolteacher. Antiques are her things. That,
and ugly sweaters with snowmen.
“Get up, you’re coming with us,” I
announced to Matt, partly because I shuddered at the thought of an hour
alone with his mom, but partly because antiquing was something
sophisticated couples do together. Or so I’ve heard.
“I don’t want to go,” he protested, lying on the couch.
“We’re going because I say so. This is going to be fucking romantic, OK?”
After much protest, I lost the battle. I
told him he couldn’t have any of the money from my treasures. He
assured me that he’d take his coins to the Coinstar and we’d be even.
Great, now my ass was going to haul the boxes.
“So let me get this straight…you’re going to what basically amounts to a glorified Goodwill store and pawn shop?”
Exactly.
His mom and I pulled up to Antique City,
which is literally three blocks of antique shops. It’s every man’s
personal labyrinth into hell. Worse than the mall, because there’s no
Brookstone or Starbucks here.
I unloaded the car and took out the truck,
rusted paint flaking off and littering the street behind me. Matt’s mom
trailed with the boxes of the other stuff. By this point, the heat
index had reached 119.
I opened the door of the first place.
“Well, what do you have there?” the portly man behind the counter asked.
“Uh…a truck. It’s an antique,” I added, stating the obvious.
“Let me see it….uh huh….OK….uh huh…and where did you get all this?” he asked me.
“My grandma passed and my grandpa asked me to sell some of it.”
“Young lady, please remove your sunglasses and look at me. Now, I’m going to ask you again, is this your stuff?”
Really?
“No jackass, I broke into someone’s house,
left the PlayStation, flat screens, laptops and jewelry, and took a
bunch of random crap.”
“Are you sassing me young lady?”
“No sir, I’m displaying blatant sarcasm.”
OK, time to try the next store.
The next store didn’t sell antiques so much
as it sold creepy dolls. And by creepy dolls, I mean, ‘Holy shit! It
looks like an episode of Criminal Minds in here!’
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| In this episode of Law and Order: SVU, the creepy doll guy kidnaps little girls and...yeah, maybe antiquing isn't my hobby but crime dramas sure are. |
“They’re looking at me,” I hissed to Matt’s mom. “There are dead bodies in the back of here. I know it.”
“Oh my God! This is like where American Girl dolls come to die when they reach middle age!”
We turned and left, but not before I could
explore the ‘Jesus Dolls’ section. Because, really, what better way to
honor our Lord and Savior than in porcelain?
After 45 minutes and ten stores, we were
disheartened, especially after the shop proprietor at one store referred
to my valuable treasures as “junk.” (I might add that this fine
upscale boutique sold NASCAR memorabilia.)
The last store advertised “We Buy
Anything.” At this point, I was covered in rust from the stupid truck
and we were all sweating in places I didn’t think it was possibly to
sweat.
We opened the door to the last place,
passing a couple in their mid-60’s. The woman had a map of Antique City
and three bags. The man’s facial expression bore a solid resemblance
of a man on death row.
“Look at that,” I thought. “That’s true love and bullshit. That’s gonna be you me 40 years.”
No fucking way.
I knew I had to change my antiquing tactic.
“Hello sir!” I announced. “We’ve come into the possession of some rare goods that I think you might be interested in.”
He looked at the truck.
“I’ll give you $80 for it.”
Sold.
I told him I had more stuff in the car. He volunteered his teenage son to come help me bring it in.
“I’m sweating my balls off,” the guy said, rounding the corner.
“Ha, mine are already sweated off,” I replied.
Just then, two ladies passed us. Apparently, it’s inappropriate to use the term “sweaty balls” while antiquing.
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| Jesus. A lamb. A lion. All on the same canvas. As awesome as the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, but will hang easily in your double-wide. |
Silverware? $40. Vase? $10. Iron? $25. This was going well.
“Miss, these vases aren’t antiques.”
“Yes they are, they are from China. The Ming dynasty I believe.”
“The Ming Dynasty was 700 years ago. These were made in 1987. See? It’s stamped right here.”
Crap.
“And these are plates from 1977 or 1978.”
“A very good year for plates,” I interjected. “They don’t make them anymore.”
“I’ll give you $5 for all that.”
“Done.”
“OK, these glass dishes? No one is going to buy these. You can have them back.”
“Come on….look at them,” I said, displaying
them as if on QVC. “They are eloquently carved, and can be used to
hold delicacies such as cheese and crackers, or perhaps candy for when
the grandkids come over.”
No chance.
“Oh wait! I have a coin! It’s authentic Chinese,” I said, reaching into my wallet and producing it.
“Um….OK, first of all, this is Japanese.
And I’m sure it’s authentic. It has a hole in the top of it. Someone
got this on a Japanese cruise ship,” he smirked.
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| WTF? Are these going to be OUR generation's antiques someday? This, the shake weight, and Bump-Its. |
We emerged from the store with $250 when all was said and done. Now, I can not only verb-ize “antique” into “antiquing,” but I can define it as, “pawning random shit in stores that sold creepy dolls and old furniture.”
I sent half the money to grandpa. He spent a solid ten minutes debating the authenticity of his Chinese coin.
Me? I still have nightmares about the creepy dolls.
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