The Battle of Wounded Knee

The Battle of Wounded Knee

The wife is in Louisiana touring the old plantation homes with a half dozen or so of her college buds until Saturday. I don’t really like staying at home by myself that long, but she comes home in a good mood, I get a new t-shirt, and I get those “husband points” that are redeemable when I screw up, which is usually soon after her homecoming. The other bad thing is that I’m running around like bat out of Hades pickin’ up Coke bottles, taking multiple bags of trash to the top of the drive, and crammin’ all the junk I’ve acquired into every nook and cranny in my two warehouses and cargo trailer, which are already full.

The last two days I spent helping with an estate sale. It was a smaller one, so I don’t get paid in cash. However, I get to pick the carcass when it’s over. This is not as bad a deal as it seems. Yes, I haul away crap that no one would take. Thanks to my superior packing skills, most of it ends up blowing out the back of the truck on the way home. The upside is that I don’t have to worry about tailgaters.

When this sale was complete, there were six Hummel figurines left, with a book value of anywhere from 90 to 180 bucks apiece. We had been trying to sell three for 100 apiece and three for 50. Four sold beforehand, so the six were left. The lady that has taken me on as an apprentice had been asked to call a woman when it was over and that she may buy what was left. She did, and the woman tried to low-ball her, saying she couldn’t pay more than 25 apiece for them because blah, blah, and blah. My friend then asked the owner of the estate what she wanted to do with them. She wanted the stuff out, and said to go ahead and sell them for 25 apiece. Then they looked at me and asked if I wanted to buy them for that. With a total book value of between 600 and 700, 150 I could manage.

One of the most interesting items was a large sketch of the “chicken ranch” that once existed in LaGrange, Texas. If you ever listen to ZZTopp, they have a song about it. Chickens were not what was being sold at said establishment, for it was a brothel. The sketch was signed by Burt Reynolds and Dolly Partain, who starred in the movie, “Best Little Whore House in Texas”. It sold for $180, and was one of the first sales of the day.

I also ended up with two very old oil paintings from Munich that I need to research. They were priced so high that they didn’t sell at half price. They gave them to me. So in reality, I was paid well. The fact that I would help for free because I enjoy it makes anything I get a bonus.

The Battle of Wounded Knee? The Friday before the sale started, I got to come over early and get what I wanted for 20% off. I bought about three hundred dollars worth of stuff to resell. One of the things I bought was a very old wrought iron outdoor chaise lounge with rubber wheels still intact. I paid $35.00 for it, and it is a given that it will bring at least four times that. It wasn’t that heavy, but it was awkward to carry alone.

Another thing cool about this house was that it had a beautifully landscaped back yard; complete with one of the nicest pools I’ve ever seen.

As I was carrying this lounge to the truck via the back gate, I had to pass by the pool. I have no clue as to what happened exactly, but I lost my balance. I think my Crocs were somehow involved, but don’t know for sure.

So, as every good captain, I went down with the ship, or in this instance, the chair. Now, I could have let go had the thing not folded up on me, locking my fingers to the doomed piece of furniture. It was surreal. It happened so fast, I never had a chance to close my eyes. All I know is that in an instant, I was half submerged in the pool along with the lounge. Now, it was the shallow end, so I landed on my knees, and the half of me that actually went in was from the waist UP. So there I was, looking around in the pool, locked to a piece of furniture. I thought of many things. I remember them clearly.

First, I came to the realization that I was indeed looking around underwater. Then when I tried to pull myself up, my fingers didn’t want to come with me. So, this was how my life would end . . . with me on my knees, butt stuck up in the air, and fingers wedged in between two parts of a $35 chair. Looking back, it really would have been an appropriate way to go out.

However, I pulled my fingers loose, leaving large amounts of skin with the lounge, and pulled myself from the water, gasping for breath. Immediately, I heard some serious laughter behind me. I was assured it had only begun after it was clear I was safe, but I ain’t so sure.

So, in the end, all I lost was the use of my left knee, skin from the same knee and a few of my fingers, and what little dignity I had left.

This is TexasTwister, blogging from the Jacques Yves Cousteau School of Furniture Transport. . .