86'ed

Let's first place the setting in which this blog was drafted: Music—"Give 'em enough rope" by the Clash; Cocktail—Keystone Light.  We apologize in advance. 


We've been kicked out of a lot of places—usually family is invovled or I started to karaoke to "Like a Virgin"—but this time it caught us off guard.  What is not normal with kicking a box of someone elses' belongings off to the side as I pronounce "I don't work here!" when some Napoleon-complexed estate sale worker demanded that I put her over-priced crap back?  Mother Theresa would've behaved the same way at 20% of retail prices.


It started off with our desire to put a lot of miles on a loaner car.  Miles on the "Bo."  I was in a car accident (55-years old Ms. Orange County on her cell phone) and have a Chevy Malibu as our loaner car.  Accordingly, day trip to Pasadena to do the Gamble House [www.gamblehouse.org], Pie and Burger [www.pienburger.com/], and an estate sale.


My wife is on the email list to an estate sale company.  The estate sale is under Pasadena's suicide bridge and is the former home of two professors with a multitude of hobbies.  The perfect hunt for rusty crap. 


After 40 minutes of pushing through a zoo of men in tight jean shorts, striped tank tops and mustaches and girls who could use a sandwich and a bath (that's what we get for going to LA), we end up with a box of rat-shit covered gardening supplies, Ziploc bags from the 70's and chrome polish (I'm the last to have on my truck).  My wife is especially excited about coming across the gardening supplement btk (the wonders of which she will undoubtedly blog about).


When Tabatha (aka "T.B." or more commonly known as "That Bitch") finally graced us with the privilege of being checked out from her blessed estate sale, she starts to calculate . . .1/2 a box of band aids $2.00, book on zucchini recipes $3.00, rat-covered tomato food $5.00.  I thought my wife was buying trash, but figured they would give me $10 to haul this shit away, so going along with it was a smarter move than trying to convince my wife otherwise. 


$57.  I offer a more than generous offer of $30 (a whole 15% of retail, which is generous for us).  As Tabatha tries to wipe the rat crap off of her hands, she says, "oh, no" with an insulted tone.  Not a problem.  It was junk after all.  As a courtesy, we were going to push the box off to the side, but Tabatha demands that we put every item back where we found it. 


"I don't work here."  "Excuse me?!?!"  "I don't work here."  86'ed.