What Do You Need For This Here?

A piece I wrote during a lull in my mom's estate sale last month

My phone dings. It’s a message on Facebook Marketplace. Another canned response for the five-drawer dresser. “Hi, is this available?” it says.

It is, but also it’s not. Because someone else inquired first, which gave them dibs. But their initial “I’ll be there tonight” turned into “How about tomorrow because it’s raining?” Now it’s tomorrow and still raining. I get another message. “Rain is set to stop at 11. Can we pick up then?” But by the time I read it it’s after 11:00 and still drizzling, so I respond asking if they’re still planning to come. They write back immediately: “It’s still raining. Any chance you can deliver?”

I swear. Because no—no I can’t fucking deliver. The reasons—well, first off, the ad said I can’t. But also, I am alone and have nobody to monitor the flow of estate sale shoppers when I need to pee, let alone watch things while I run an errand across town. Plus, I’m exhausted, sleep deprived, and cranky. My hands and face are sore and swollen. I’m unshowered and wearing the same shirt as yesterday. And then there’s my tricky back, which is now extra-tweaked from hauling two heavy ass broken dehumidifiers to the sidewalk last night. I don’t want to do any more things for anyone. Not my dead dad, not my mom, not my siblings, and especially not for someone I don’t even know. I message back. “No. I can’t deliver. Sorry.” Then I delete “Sorry” and hit send.

I’ve spent the weekend wearing a plastic retail smile, eagerly welcoming strangers into my mom’s 1946 Cape Cod, explaining the sale’s layout, then directing shoppers to whatever they may be looking for. Magnifying glasses, antique scissors, spools of thread, yard sticks? Yep, right this way! The crystal cake plate from the ad photo? Sorry friend, sold it yesterday.

This past week I sifted through the contents of my parent’s four bedroom house and gathered it all into an assortment of collections. Baby food jars, royal family ephemera, clothespins, thimbles, cheese slicers, pocket knives, angel trinkets, partially used crayons, cookie cutters, religious paraphernalia, and so much more. I gathered everything up and reunited disparate bits with their long lost cousins, then strategically merchandised it all and adjusted lighting to entice buyers to pay top dollar.

Ultimately I’ll allow folks to talk me down to whatever they want to pay. Will I take five for a 1978 collectible Mickey Mouse watch? Sure. Or how about two for all of these unopened reams of printer paper? You got it. And what do I think about three hundred for a century-old dinette set in near-mint condition? Yep. Shit, I’ll even help you load it! Because at 3:00 this afternoon, I’m going to rip down the masking-taped welcome sign, load what’s left into my truck, and head straight to Goodwill. I know the guy over there now. “More?” he’ll ask, then think I’m kidding when I tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.

Trying to determine a monetary value for all these items suggests that things, in general, don’t have any actual value at all. Something is only valuable if you think it is, and only if you’re willing to open your wallet. Because of this, I advised my extra-sentimental mom to steer clear of the sale. I want to protect her from having to witness her cherished things transact for a pittance between reselling penny pinchers.

Last night after day one came to a close, my mom and I chatted on the phone. All she wanted to know was if her stuff went to good homes. I recalled the details of one sale in particular—the young couple with a newborn who took home our family’s Ethan Allen dining room table. Mom choked up to the news. “I want to know that everything is going to good people,” she said. I assured her that everything is going where it needs to go.

It’s hard being the sibling responsible for the fate of a literal lifetime of family artifacts. Dredging tangible pieces and parts of our shared pasts has subjected me to a flood of conjured memories otherwise lost without these material triggers. Like that small butter knife with the handle that rattles when you shake it. Why does it remind me of Gramps? And the glass sugar bowl with the clanging metal lid that takes me right back to a kitchen filled with cut up brown paper bags covered with countless homemade chocolate chip cookies. Mom’s 1:1 sugar to flour ratio made those suckers flat and candy-like as they cooled and crystallized. Also there’s that one afghan with varied shades of purple that was never warm enough. And the list goes on. I am the one who makes the call on whether a thing gets sold or trashed. This responsibility is more burdensome than I could have ever predicted.

Most items in this house are emotionally charged, and physically interacting with them takes an energetic toll. I’ve endured multiple meltdowns of late. One time bawling and screaming at my dad’s walking stick (“Why didn’t you tell us how sick you actually were!”), another time at my mom’s collection of angels (“Isn’t one or two enough? If you need a million guardian angels it’s obvious they aren’t doing their job!”). I attacked these pieces of my parent’s life for getting more attention than me all these years. My tirade was out of line, but I was not in my right mind.

In the hardest moments of my sleep-deprived grieving these past few weeks, I regularly cursed my parent’s collected abundance of ceramic geese, wall clocks, teapots, music boxes, replica cable cars, Boy Scout handbooks, and rubber bands as if they were to blame for what I lack as an adult. My low self confidence. My never-ending need to keep doing bigger and bigger things to prove my value. My social awkwardness. My absolute lack of game. Etc. I unpacked hundreds of boxes while stewing about all the things I could have done, or perhaps should have done, to fully sort out these emotions before my dad’s death. I took my unresolved feelings out on knickknacks and crippety-crap. These releases felt good. And if nothing else, they were a reminder that I’ve still got work to do on myself. But I already knew that.

Next weekend I’ll do a sale like this all over again. A different inventory of stuff I’ll excavate from the cobwebbed garage and basement—my dad’s realm. A world of old tools, sealed accountant boxes from the 70s and 80s marked “Disney” and “Avon” and “Family Photos.” An expanse riddled with rows of meticulously labelled bins containing six decades of random items. My initial peek revealed thirty rolls of rotting scotch tape, all my father’s report cards dating back to kindergarten (“Jimmy is not a good listener!”), a multitude of color coded bungee cords of different lengths, drawers of drill bits and Allen wrenches and other mysterious mechanical treasures known only to the knower, and buckets of tens of thousands of used screws and nails of various types and gauges because, well, you don’t know when you might need tens of thousands of used screws and nails of various types and gauges.

My parents never had much money, so they saved everything to keep from having to spend what little they did have. I wonder if these collected material items were like Samson’s hair—a source of perceived strength and power. A kind of wealth. Maybe holding onto all of these objects brought them comfort. Gave them a sense of solace in the chaotic world of raising five kids while managing a meager budget. One thing’s for sure—their things were harbingers of joy during their fifty-five years together, even if they likely inspired at least a few of their children to grow up to be minimalists.

My mom’s already moved out and settled into her new independent living community, which means all that remains has to go. Sentimentally loaded or not, I took the liberty to assign everything a value. Peeled and labelled fifteen hundred neon price dots to do so. Something to give the buyer a place to start the haggling.

“Hey man—what you got on this collection of spoons?” someone just asked. “What did I price it at?” I holler back. “Twenty,” they say. When I tell them to “Give me ten,” they let me know they’re starting a pile. “I’ve got some reusable bags to make it easier for you to shop,” I say. They light up.

I then zip around the house taking everyone’s money and try not to care as morsels of my family’s collective heart walk out the door, one cheapskate at a time. Because whatever. All I care about is getting everything out of here. That’s all I’m allowing myself to care about right now, anyhow.