by Randy Nargi
The next thing Angela knew, someone was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Someone with very soft lips. She opened her eyes and saw Helen—the woman from the focus group who owned the store. “I’m okay…” Angela gasped.
But Helen continued to give her mouth-to-mouth for another thirty seconds or so. “Just to make sure,” Helen explained later.
Angela apologized and they laughed about it later as Angela went through the store on a buying spree—snatching up anything that reminded her of her childhood. Helen was very nice and even gave her a few of the items for free since BJ wasn’t around. As Angela was writing the check for her purchases, she asked Helen where in the world they got all this stuff.
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. It’s kind of a trade secret…” Helen said. “But most of this stuff is from garage sales here locally.”
“Garage sales? Really?” Angela had always thought of garage sales as people just selling off their junk. Old socks. Clothes kids had grown out of. Half-used toiletries. Stuff like that.
“No, Bogwood is known for the quality of its garage sales. Especially for the stuff you like. Mid-century modern. BJ says that after Palm Springs and Miami, Bogwood’s the ‘it’ place for mid-century modern.”
At that moment a little light went off in Angela’s head. Garage sales. She could start going to garage sales…
14. Dusting the Treasures
Dick found the activity of cleaning—particularly dusting—very therapeutic. He had read somewhere that the up-and-down motion of using a feather duster was remarkably similar to many t’ai chi movements, including Number 10: “Step Back to Repulse Monkey.” I’m actually staying fit as I clean, he thought as he adjusted his portable lamp to shine its light on the built-in shelves where he kept most of his “treasures.”
The lamp, like virtually every other item Dick valued these days, was obtained at a garage sale. Or, to be more accurate, an estate sale. The sale was at the home of the late Dr. Alwin Jardine, a noted ophthalmologist at the University in Seattle. The lamp (which Dick was able to snatch away from a pair of tough-looking senior citizens) was an early prototype of the Jardine Vision Light and it required a special type of bulb called the Excelsior. Dick wasn’t a science nut by any means, but he did some basic research and learned that there was something about the Jardine Vision Light—the amplitude of the light waves or some such—that promoted improved vision. Skeptical at first, Dick noticed that indeed his vision actually improved slightly during the three years that he had been using his Jardine. Now he took the damn thing everywhere—to work—to restaurants—even when reading in the bathroom.
The Jardine in place, Dick turned his attention to dusting the first shelf—which contained his tiki collection. Back in the mid 1950s, Dick used to spend a fair share of his time holed up in places like the Ebbtider in Hollywood, or the Shrimp Shack in Beverly Hills, and of course, Captain Tayback’s. These Polynesian-themed bars were all the rage at the time. Dick supposed that’s when he became intrigued by tiki statues. He found a crap load of tikis over the years at garage sales and Goodwills throughout southern California, but his favorite item was a 10-inch tall tiki statue that he called “Muhumbu.” He lifted Muhumbu from its place of honor in the center of the shelf and delicately knocked the dust off it with the duster. This particular statue was actually “Muhumbu 2” and it was a replacement for the original Muhumbu which got damaged when Dick’s waterbed broke and flooded his Silverlake apartment.
The new Muhumbu was carved from kauri wood, native of the South Seas. Very resistant to water. In fact, sometimes Dick would take Muhumbu 2 in the bath with him, and just putter around with it. Kind of for good luck. To prevent bathroom accidents. He loved the way the statue’s puka shell eyes appeared to be following him no matter which angle he turned the statue.
Having cleaned the tikis, Dick next turned to a 100 year old silver flask engraved with the initials “DM.” Every month or so, he polished the hip flask, but today he was just wiping it clean of dust. Being a history buff, Dick was very excited when he won the flask at an auction during a trip to North Carolina. Although it could not be conclusively authenticated, most experts who examined the flask believed there was a good chance it was once the property of Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison. The story went that although Mrs. Madison was raised as a strict Quaker, she was a strong believer in gin for medicinal purposes. So she allegedly kept this flask under her dress at all times. It was a true historical treasure.
Dick continued with the other items on his shelves—his snooker ball collection, some crystal skull vases, hand-made tarot cards, guitar capos from Mississippi, and a new collection of “Pot o’ Gold” toys from Japan.
It was the damnedest thing. According to his former agent Phil McRosen, reruns of Dick’s old TV show “Pot o’ Gold” was in syndication in Japan and the kids were going nuts over it. It was some kind of retro phenomena. Almost overnight, there were “Pot o’ Gold” cartoons, lunch boxes, stickers, websites, t-shirts, cell phone cases, and a bunch of plastic miniature statuettes of the cast—including a cute little Uncle Angus figurine that stood only two inches tall. Perhaps the strangest evidence of this “Pot o’ Gold” resurgence was a YouTube video mash-up of clips from the show set to (what was later described to Dick as) an “auto-tuned” snippet of him saying his catchphrase “Begorrah!”
A few weeks ago, his neighbor June, a United Airlines flight attendant, brought him a whole carry-on bag full of “Pot o’ Gold” toys that she picked up in Tokyo.
To cap things off, yesterday he got a phone call from an antiques dealer in New York who offered him $100,000 for an original old “Pot o’ Gold” board game from the 60s—in any condition. Dick didn’t even know they made a board game back then. That's another thing they screwed me out of—
15. Pencil Sharpeners
Angela sat at her computer with her fourth after-dinner glass of white wine. Her dog, Cocoa, dozed noisily at her feet, snuffling in his sleep. He probably was dreaming of ducks in the park.
Stacked around her computer were several antique reference books and price guides which she did not really use all that much. She’d only been into garage sales and flipping for a little more than six months, but she was doing well. According to her PayPal balance, Angela had made over eight thousand dollars last month. That was way more than she earned at Olympic Research. At this rate, she might be able to quit her job by the end of the year. Which would allow her to spend more time with Cocoa.
Angela got off to a very rocky start with garage sale-ing. At first she was buying more-or-less indiscriminately. She had no idea what was valuable or not. She basically just bought stuff that she personally liked. With such a huge inventory, Angela quickly got into some financial hot water (and ended up having to sell her car and take the bus for three months). Finally she began to figure out eBay and Etsy and a bunch of other websites, and she convinced Keith, the IT guy at work, to hook her up with some software (which he called “a black-hat scraper bot,” whatever that was). The software analyzed what was selling on these auction sites and then would send the data to her computer or even her iPhone. That way when Angela was at a sale, she could immediately tell what was worth buying and for how much. Ah, technology.
She took another sip of wine and looked at her computer screen. According to the data pulled off eBay, Swiss-made staplers were big right now. So were art deco glass picture frames. Whoa. Topping the list right at that moment were pencil sharpeners. She scanned through the subcategories. Navy ship pencil sharpeners, globe pencil sharpeners, cannon-shaped pencil sharpeners, die-cast metal chipmunk pencil sharpeners, sharpeners in the shape of cash registers, the Statue of Liberty, a "little kitten in a shoe" pencil sharpener going for $85, a French doll pencil sharpener, a Challenger mini-shuttle commemorative pencil sharpener, and a train caboose pencil sharpener. These were all in huge demand.
Of course things could change between now and the weekend, but if sh
e ran into any pencil sharpeners, Angela could expect to resell them for double or triple the price she paid. Easy.
“What do you think of that, Cocoa?” she asked the sleeping dog at her feet. “Mummy’s going to be rich!” But Cocoa didn’t answer. Angela had the distinct feeling that he feigned sleep so he wouldn’t have to respond to her. That was okay; she loved him anyway.
This particular Cocoa was Cocoa Number Three and he was named after the original pet Angela had when she was growing up in Encino. The Original Cocoa was a girl and she was actually a cat. But since Angela found out she was allergic to cats, she ended up adopting dogs, one after another, since college. So far there had been one female Cocoa dog and two males. The present Cocoa, who she adopted from a rescue group called the Bogwood Purebred Dog Rescue (BPDR), was a Chinese Chow Chow dog mixed with a little bit of something else. Cocoa Three was the first Chow she’d ever known (the other Cocoas had been either cats, Poodles, or Pit Bulls) and she became captivated with the breed’s detached and introspective personality. Often Cocoa would ignore her for an entire day, and she adored him for it. He was the perfect dog for her, but he also had an infrequent mischievous streak.
Last week, for instance when she pet him for longer than he liked, Cocoa snuck into her den and chewed up a vintage Lincoln Logs play set that was worth $200. Angela knew she couldn’t let Cocoa get away with that, so she dressed him up in a little black and white convict outfit that she sewed for the occasion. It was part of a new dog training technique that she read about on the Internet called “envisualization.” The idea is that when a dog was bad or has acted inappropriately, you dressed him or her in a costume which signified the dog’s inappropriate behavior and then positioned the animal in front of a mirror so he could see himself in a negative light. In this case, the costume was a convict outfit. And although he looked adorable as a little inmate, Angela was sure Cocoa got the message. The week before when, Cocoa pooped on her beanbag chair and then ate his own feces, she dressed him like a doctor with a little plastic stethoscope to signify his very sick behavior. It was definitely working.
16. The Dinner Party
On Thursday evening in their West Seattle bungalow, BJ & Helen entertained their good friend Jenniphur and her new fiance Nelson—who they were meeting for the first time. Nelson was a handsome African-American man with neat dreads pulled back in a ponytail. He wore black-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket, and he seemed to Helen a bit fussy. She later found out that this was because Nelson was one of the top interior designers at Kikki + Kikki Architects, one of the big firms in town that did all the mansions for the area’s newly-minted biotech millionaires. Nelson also had his own online craft shop on Etsy.com, where he sold handmade soaps made from some of the local moss and lichen. He was a nice enough guy, Helen thought, but the whole thing with Jenniphur was a bit strange. Until about six months ago, Jen had been playing for “their team”—both literally (BJ’s All-Girls Badminton Team) and metaphorically (Jenniphur had only dated women). So when she announced her engagement to a man after a badminton game a few months ago, all the gals were shocked. Jenniphur didn’t offer much of an explanation—other than she really connected with Nelson and gender wasn’t really that important in the big scheme of things.
Although BJ and Helen took great care in decorating their home (mostly with vintage items they brought home from the shop—or bought from Heidi), Helen was a little apprehensive about how a professional like Nelson might judge their efforts. But the moment he and Jenniphur breezed in the front door, Nelson’s eyes lit up with obvious admiration. He made a beeline to a set of antique drapes framing a large picture window on one side of their living room.
“Chenille!” Nelson exclaimed, fingering the tufted fabric drapes. “This is chenille, isn’t it? Love, love, love it! So soft! You don’t often see window coverings in it, though.”
He continued flitting around the room, examining everything and announcing his approval. BJ smiled at Jenniphur knowingly as Helen served drinks—Elderflower Chipotle Mojitos—the specialty of the house.
“And who are these little guys?” asked Nelson as he moved close to a glass display shelf filled with elephant figurines.
“This is our elephant collection,” Helen said. “Well, mostly BJ’s elephant collection.”
“Yeah. She kind of adopted my collection,” explained BJ.
“May I?” Nelson asked as he picked a carved white elephant up for a closer look.
“That’s a real interesting one I got for BJ when I was back East,” Helen said. “At first I thought it was made of ivory—you know, an elephant made out of ivory—which would be kind of ironic, but also kind of bad.”
“No ivory. No fur. No meat. Word,” said BJ.
“Right there with you, girlfriend,” replied Nelson.
BJ raised her glass to Nelson. “Are you vegan?”
“Uh… totally,” he said.
Jenniphur smiled. “Nelson does all the cooking. He’s amazing.”
“Oh, pshaw!
“But luckily we had it tested,” Helen continued with her story. “And it’s actually made of compressed coconut.”
“Really?”
“We did some research online and found out that it was made in Hawaii,” said BJ. “Although why they would sculpt an elephant in Hawaii, I have no idea. I don't think they have elephants in Hawaii.”
Nelson sniffed the carved elephant. “Oh my god, you’re right! It smells like suntan lotion. Sniff it!” He passed the figurine to Jenniphur who also sniffed it.
“That’s wild,” she said. “Coconut all right.”
Helen explained some of the other elephants in the collection; they came in all sizes and materials, ranging from antique brass, ceramic, chrome, kauri wood, papier-mache, even a trio of elephant candles.
BJ lifted up a pink quartz stone statuette of an elephant rearing up on its back legs. “This is one of my favorites. See the standing position she’s in? That’s a sign of dominance. A lot of people say, ‘oh an elephant never forgets,’ but actually that’s not true. They forget all the time, but they are better than most animals at pretending they know what they’re doing.”
“Like me!” Nelson clapped his hands together and grinned. “I’m always forgetting my swatch book and I, like, cover it up, by saying ‘oh, it’s the gray one’ or something…”
BJ took a sip of her Mojito. “Last year we did a photo safari in Gwabi, and we saw this big bull elephant, who clearly had forgotten which way she was leading the troop. But did she stop? Did she hesitate? No, she raised herself up on her back legs, and said ‘c’mon you assholes, follow me!’ and she never looked back. Magnificent creatures!”
“You know so much about elephants,” Nelson took BJ’s arm playfully. “All I know is that they have those big, long… trunks…”
“Uh huh.”
17. Ed’s Boardgames
Ed could usually count on a few hours of free time immediately after dinner while Ben vomited. The kid puked like clockwork. Every night. Not his whole dinner certainly; that would be bad. But usually a tablespoon of greenish spittle. His pediatrician had checked him out thoroughly and had found nothing medically wrong with the child. Ed secretly thought his son was doing him a favor and barfing just enough to keep mommy occupied so daddy could have some alone time. What a kid. It almost made Ed tear up a bit.
Ed shut the door to his basement ‘man cave’ as they liked to say on HGTV. Not that Katie ever came down here. She was terrified of spiders—even though, in actuality, spiders were pretty rare down here. In fact, Ed paid a neighbor kid a dollar a spider to gather the critters from other people’s basements and deliver them to Ed’s basement. It kind of kept the family peace. And definitely worth $30-$40 a month.
On one wall of the room, spanning nearly thirty feet, was a large industrial shelving unit—not unlike what you might find at a Costco, although Ed’s shelves only went up ten feet to the ceiling. All totaled, it was roughly 1,200 cubic feet of stora
ge—and it was nearly all occupied by Ed’s board game collection. The basement storage held over 2000 games, and there were another 4,200 in an off-site storage unit on high ground. The entire collection was chronicled on Ed’s website “LaSalle’s Game Salon”—where he also bought and sold vintage board games.
One of his specialties was board games based on old TV shows. He had an entire section of the website organized almost like a TV Guide style grid, but instead of show descriptions, the website showed pictures of games. Back in the 1960s and 70s, there were only a few cross-promotional opportunities available to TV producers. So mostly they created lunch boxes and board games based on their TV shows in order to bring in some additional revenue.
Back about six years ago when he started to get into collecting, Ed chose to go with board games because on the whole they smelled a little better than forty and fifty year old lunch boxes.
He stared at his computer screen—specifically at a blank spot in his collection. 1968, Thursday night, 8 PM, channel 2. The show was Pot o’ Gold and although Ed had never seen more than a few episodes of it on Nick at Nite, he was extremely familiar with the board game. Pot o’ Gold was one of the rarest—if not the rarest—board games out there. Apparently there was a problem during the manufacturing process and the wrong type of paper was used and, as a result, kids were getting hurt. So there was a big recall at the time and now experts estimated that there are only a dozen or two of the games in existence. When Ed first heard the story, he doubted its veracity, but after a few weeks of research he actually was able to track down one of the paper company executives who was around during the Pot o’ Gold fiasco. The old guy was living in Venezuela or someplace like that, but Ed got him on the phone and asked about the incident.
