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Auctions, Snakes and Surplusses

   Written by on May 15, 2015 at 12:37 pm

As you already know, my bride Management is perfect in every way with the exception of a few issues with fire trucks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, snakes, poverty, and auctions.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

I am forbidden to attend auctions without an attendant. I am also required to wear my auction jacket. My jacket is also perfect in every way except that the sleeves are so long she has to wrap them around my back and buckle them in front. I keep forgetting to tell her that it makes it difficult to bid when I can’t raise my arms. Once I explain I am certain she will fix the problem. As it is now I have to bounce to get the auctioneer’s attention. I lose a lot of bids that way. If I bid on expensive stuff maybe the auctioneer would watch me but what I want is what nobody else does so I get it cheap.

If it wasn’t for the problem with the toothpaste I could shout and still bid but somehow every time I am planning on attending an auction, the toothpaste somehow gets switched with super glue.

I did get in a bid at the last sale by bouncing on a woman’s foot. She screamed, the auctioneer looked my way and I bounced in a bid. When I tried it the next time everyone kept their feet out of my way.

I got an announcement today that there will be a surplus sale this weekend. This is not an auction. I checked my list of “don’t buy items” and Management has never added “surplusses” to the list.

I think it is only fair to assume that if she hasn’t put an item on the list it is all right for me to buy it.

It’s funny but AFTER I buy something, it often appears on the list. The lesson I’ve learned from this is to buy a lot, because the odds are it will appear on the list and I’ll never get another chance.

The first time this happened was when I bought a beautiful snake. I remember her exact words but I am attempting to forget the intensity. “Why” she said, “would you BUY a snake? You can just pick up all the snakes you want.” Please pay attention. She said, “I could pick up all the snakes I wanted.” I had her permission.

Years later she attempted to retract his statement and said it wasn’t really what she meant. How else could I have understood that?

Then I found a man with an Albino King snake for sale. It wasn’t really expensive, just more than I usually pay for a car. I drive cheap so it wasn’t a lot of money. I checked my “do not buy list.” Albino King snakes were not on it. I remembered our conversation. She never said, “Don’t buy a snake,” she asked “Why would you buy a snake?” I had a good answer. I bought it because I couldn’t just pick one up anywhere. After I returned the snake for a refund, I found Albino King snakes had been added to the list, along with every species of snake in North America.

I am looking forward to the surplus sale. I almost skipped the one last year because I knew I didn’t need a surplice, much less a bunch of them. A surplice is robe like the Pope wears. I figured a surplus was a bunch of surplices. Then I remembered a toga party I once attended and decided Management would be beautiful in one.

I would be happy to give you the details of the toga party but when I checked my mental archives, I found the details were unavailable for publication. It must not have been much of a party.

Don’t even ask about the toga party but I’ll be happy to report the results of the surplus sale if I survive.

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