All right I’ll admit
it: I love going through other people’s stuff whether it’s an estate sale, a
garage sale or a pile of stuff on the sidewalk. It’s the thrill of the hunt.
Always has been; always will be. You have no idea of the incredible things I
have found or maybe you do if you’ve seen my house—or if you are a “picker” as
well, I’m sure you are overcrowded with found treasures.
My habit started at age
three and I remember it well: I was in my grandparent’s dining room pilfering
through the drawers in the huge buffet that almost took up an entire wall. Who
knows what I was looking for but I kept pilfering until I heard my grandmother
say “Don’t plunder in those drawers.” “Plunder” was a word I didn’t know but I
knew the tone of her voice—the not good one that any kid recognizes. Instantly
I stopped and resumed doing something else but from that day forward, I was the
forever seeker of hidden treasures.
By age eight, I had a
collection of rocks underneath my bed much to my mom’s disdain. They were ones
I had found and to me, each one was simply beautiful. Kept those rocks forever
until too many moves by my parents and me and who knows what happened to them
for they were never seen again. The answer to my problem was simply to collect
more rocks—and of those, I still have some plus many more.
My impulse to be a
picker never did quit: I went from rocks, to handkerchiefs, to boxes, to old
buttons and to whatever I spied that was either free or sold at a cheap
price. When I got married the first
time, I had some collections or “dust catchers” as my mom called them but not
much. It was on a trip that my then-husband and I took a trip to Tennessee to
stay with a college friend of mine and her husband that I caught the “picker
fever” big time. My friend Carrie had a house full of things that I simply
lusted after and she knew it. We went to several auctions but I bought nothing
for my then-husband would not pay the shipping fee on big furniture. So much
for that but when we returned home, I was on the search for what my friend had
and I found it all right—I found an overload.
I will never forget
an antique dealer friend of mine saying upon surveying my house “You need a box
room.” Ah, she knew me too well for boxes of any kind have always been my
weakness. Can I explain it? Of course I can’t: I just liked boxes. My box
fetish went on to much bigger ones—the wardrobe type. At one point, I had
fifteen that I had picked, refinished and sold most but five are still here.
Many male friends of
mine have bought things from me and with each thing gone, I felt regret but the
money I made went to buying something else for the house, for my sons or for
another treasure. Years ago now, I found that thrift shops were a great place
to pick for I would know the layout and seek what interested me but the problem
is I still have so much of that and yet it’s hard to let go of so much of it.
Do I need a lot of it? No. Do I like a lot of it? Of course I do—why would I find
or buy something I didn’t like?
My grown sons seem to
have no desire to take half of what is in my house even though much of it is
things that have been passed down through my family. To me, I know the story
behind each piece but to them, they don’t. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you
are facing the same dilemma—of what to do with treasured things. I have sold a
lot in the past when life was normal such as being able to put an ad in the
paper and have semi-honest and sincere people stopped by but as for now? It’s
an entirely different world in which it’s hard to trust strangers for too many
reasons.
In the last seven
weeks, I haven’t bought one treasure and maybe it’s the knowing that there
simply is nowhere to put it but last week while driving around, I spied a chair
on the sidewalk underneath a piece of rotted trellis. Parked my car, got out
and pulled back that trellis to see a metal chair with a padded seat and back
rest: The material on the seat had a big gash in it and I stood there
hesitating for two reasons: I couldn’t fix that gash and I had no place for
another chair either inside or outside of my house. But sometimes common sense
goes out the window when a treasure is seen that can be redeemed.
Yanking back the
trellis, I lifted that chair into the backseat of my car and it had to be the
heaviest straight back metal chair I ever lifted. Got in my car and as I headed
off, I knew I’d made a huge mistake and so I drove by a friend’s house thinking
that she and her husband would like it but they weren’t home. The only decision
I had was to bring that chair home, which I did, and set it on my sidewalk. It
took about five minutes of looking to know good and well I didn’t need it or
want it. Again, I lifted that heavy chair into my backseat and went back to the
very place where I had gotten it. Stopped my car in the middle of the street,
attempted to drag out the chair when a woman in front of me came to my rescue
by saying “Want me to lift that out for you?”
I was never so
grateful in my life as I watched her drag that heavy chair to the exact place
it had been as I held back the rotted trellis. Thanked her and headed home.
The very minute I got
out of my car, I felt something in my hair: It was dusk and there was no way I
could see what it was and so I used my right hand and flicked it off of me.
Instantly my right ring finger was on fire—it felt like a thousand fire
crackers were going off in it. Never had I ever felt pain like that and had no
idea how to stop it and so I asked people. Finally someone said “Maybe a hornet
or wasp was in your hair:” “One of those?” I asked. “It felt papery” was all I
could say about it. “Then it was a hornet in your hair” said a friend of mine
who had been a science teacher.
All because of a worn
out chair I got stung by a hornet: Go figure. I had no baking soda but
remembered that using toothpaste can do the very same thing for a wasp, bee or
hornet sting and so I ran to the bathroom, opened the toothpaste with my left
hand and smeared my right ring finger with it. After one hour, the pain
decreased and I sat here thinking how totally stupid the whole thing was. One
friend said “You should have just kept the blasted chair.” “Don’t I know it”
was my reply.
Two days later while
driving around, I spied the trellis but guess what? Someone had taken the chair
again and it was not trash pickup day either. Maybe that person also got stung
by a hornet for the chair could have held a nest inside—but I will never know.
I don’t want to know.
But aside from that
totally stupid episode, I will still be a picker—a gatherer of this and that and
one that seeks treasures for it is innate and who knows what treasure is
lurking around the corner? I just hope that whatever it is, it is devoid of
hornets. Rest my case.
Sherry Hill
Copyright © 2016
Sherry Hill
All Rights Reserved
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