Furniture? We don't need no furniture!

[Editor note: this is an essay written by one of our frequent blog contributors, Chuck Hofvander. Chuck is a two time stroke survivor and likes to write essays to keep his mind sharp. This is one essay he wrote after his stroke about an experience he had before his stroke.]

by Chuck Hofvander

It was Saturday, I didn’t have anything to do and I was bored so I decided to go a furniture auction. The auction was being held at a local outlet furniture store that was going out of business. Liz and I had bought furniture there before but some of it was really high priced, out of our price range, so I thought going to an auction was good idea.

I went to the store when it opened, sat down, and waited to see how the process of an auction went; I had never been to an auction before. My heavens, the furniture was going at prices far below the list price! The bidders were signaling the auctioneer by waving their hands, raising their fingers, and blinking; however none were standing up.

Liz and I bought few things at retail prices. The few exceptions were our chair, love seat, and sofa for the livingroom, our kitchen chairs, and our bedroom set. All the rest was bought at either a discount, used, or things we inherited. Not that we were cheap but frugal with our money.

I bought an arm chair by waving my hand and was the winner! Wow! Liz had got to get into this!

This was before cell phones so I got in the car, went home and told Liz that she wouldn’t believe the prices; our home was furnished but we couldn’t resist a bargain! Could you?

We went, won the bidding on an end table, roll top desk, and a butler table. I thought we were done but Liz had seen a large, very large, curio cabinet, so large I doubted we could it get through any of our outside doors. Liz said we should bid but it was out of our price range, the list price was over $6,000. Liz was insistent but we agreed that we were not going over $500.

The curio was ugly, dirty and covered with dust and the monster was brought to the stage. It required four men to carry the thing. The bidding started at $100 and a man immediately waved his hand, another followed by blinking, and the bidding continued. Liz was active in the bidding. The curio eventually reached our limit of $500. I was relieved.  Now I didn’t have to face the problem of getting it into our house.

Liz sat there nervously, fidgeting, and twitching. The bidding went on to $550, $570, $600, $650 and then there was a sound, a sound so loud kids from across the street jumped, people at the auction were frightened and the auctioneer hid!  It was Liz! Liz jumped out of her seat, waved her arms, and screamed like a lunatic $700! Everyone was stunned. We won the bidding.

I, with the help of six friends, got the monster into our house after several attempts to get it through out front door.

I learned three things from this:

·        Auctions are dangerous things without somebody there to keep you from bidding on things you don’t need,      

 I    It doesn’t make sense to buy furniture at retail prices,

·       
     And never, ever let Liz go to auctions without three or four adults to restrain her.