Do I hear a Quarter?

By Donna OShaughnessy AKA The Midlife Farmwife

Last year at this time the husband and I decided we needed a break from the farm, so we took a mini-vacation and attended...The Small Farm Show in Columbia Missouri. Yes, our horizons do need broadening.

On the way home we came through Memphis, Missouri and swung towards downtown to look for a mom and pop cafe. Over the years we have discovered the best food is usually food at the places with the worst signage.  But before we found grub we found this:

Our pulses quickened, our mouths became suddenly dry . Could it be? Was it indeed, oh glory be...an auction? Keep in mind my husband had recently brought home yet another truckload of "inventory" from his mother's recently sold house and I had gnawed lightly on his gluteous maximus about that. How could I, with good conscience,  suggest we attend this hoedown for hoarders?   Frankly, rarely a week goes by without my strongly suggesting to Keith he MUST downsize his collections (If you can call four non-working manure spreaders a "collection." )

I felt  guilty even suggesting  we look , but I did.

We edged closer, pulled in by the possibility of great treasure, perhaps a new potato fork lurked behind the gold and olive green Tupperware of Carol Brady's time. Or maybe a vintage Evening in Paris cobalt blue perfume bottle (my own weakness) was stuffed inside a vinyl rain cap.

We crept forward. Hmmmm, not close enough. Are those tires on the wagon for SALE ? Or just for show ? We edged even closer hoping the locals would not see us. They might start moving the "good stuff" around like behind the Suck and Cut home hair trimmer, so us out-of-towners were less likely to see it.  Finally though, we were within the Circle of Fiends...

Oh man ! Just Look at it, Look at it ! Look at it ! All that loot. I broke into song.

Old broken toys and suitcases of plastic, half opened bottles of shampoo long gone spastic, boots that are stylin'

And nuns that are smilin'

These are a few of my favorite (auction) things.

Before I go any further, does anyone else see that nuns eyes move as you look at her from different angles ? Good. For a moment I thought it was just me having the Sister Mary Gerard flashback from my parochial school days.

In the past when it came to auctions, it was said that Keith used me and I used him and neither one cared, BUT as the saying goes in our home lately, "Someone quit her job and that would mean LESS MONEY " So we snooped, and opened a few old purses looking for gold coins and then convinced ourselves that although we really WANTED the 30 year old microwave (fruit dryer ? storage unit for extra coffee cups? Funky Terrarium ? We did not really need it .

So like the strong willed folks we are, we walked away. Well I walked away, Keith laid down and kicked and screamed but  this wizened old mama once spied on one of our teen boys from inside the local car wash, I wasn't above dragging a grown man down the main street in Memphis. (Insert badly rhymed country song here.)

The big cities have their opera's, while we in the heartland have our farm auctions. Neither one is over till the fat lady sings.