Anything... With Drapery

Anything... With Drapery

            I was a little bit disappointed with myself for bothering myself with the selfish directives suggesting I was missing some ‘their point’ with my ‘old things’ vending.  Caroline Bennett had “taken my (her) time”, she told me, to compliment me upon the “good look” of some English furniture I was purchasing from a local estate.  There was a signed  Cornelius Co. (Philadelphia) ‘brass and glass’ Girandole set (three components) with cast brass characters from Cooper’s Leather Stocking series on stepped marble bases in the same room of the estate.  I carried those out of there too... but she missed them?  Or she hated them?  Or she did not know what they were.  I didn’t take the glass prisms off and they tinkled as I extracted the set from the estate.  Actually ‘purloined’ them is a better word.  I don’t believe they understood they were signed and (of the) period (1850).

            She can be a dreadful women when she turns her sights on ‘collecting antiques’.  I felt better of my trade goods when I reminded myself of the low esteem I ‘carried out’ for her collecting.

            The bridge back across from the island was icy and an accident had just been cleared when I went across.  That consideration connected that either Caroline was ahead of me... or behind me... in her departure from the estate

            Sale.

            I don’t really care a rat’s ass what Caroline says about any antique including her derogatory ram of the estate’s pair of Georgian guilt wood looking glass sconces that she pronounced as a “horrid profile of herself” whatever that was about and it was probably about how her butt appeared in the sconce’s dual reflection.  “Are you seeing a ghost of your own destiny?” I said to myself.  The estate was keeping “those” and “well they should” qualified Caroline.  What was she looking for in there today?  She didn’t buy anything.

            But that is usual for her and forms the whole of her collection; the ‘old things’ she did... not... buy.

            “The carpets are so worn out.” she notified the sales staff.  “By the time I took those home they would have turned to dust.  But I would never take them home.  I don’t like dust.”

            With these old rugs neutralized by Caroline emendation to the written “sale” suggestion that one may purchase all the ‘oriental carpet remnants’ for “a single price” I decided to use her craft for myself when I, after she moved on to another room, negotiated my ‘could be’ interested in ‘all’

            Of them.

            “That’s not really your style.” Caroline said when I was rolling up each single ‘old rug’ out of the “that pile”, one by one.  There were fourteen old scatter rugs in that pile and I doubt anyone ever counted them.  They were just dragged there.  From the other rooms.  I suppose.  “Your making the air in here all dusty doing that” Caroline continued.

            “Powdered dog poop?” I asked her.  She rolled her eyes at my eyes and said “The whole estate is powdered dog poop.  When do you think was the last time those rugs were vacuumed.  Did you go in the bedrooms yet?  They’ve been closed for years”.

            I did go in the bedrooms.  With one of the sales staff.  After Caroline went back downstairs.  After her second tour of the bedrooms that was

            Just to see if I was “your buying those?” anything.

            “I thought maybe I could use them in the garage.” I said.

            “Garage?” she said.  Then winced her nose and this let her (neck) harnessed eyeglasses slide down that nose so her eyes looked over the glasses at me and then at the two old sewing stands.  “They’re not a pair.” she said.

            “No.  But I won’t notice when I park the cars in front of them.”  She just looked at me like I was stupid.  I am stupid.

            When I went back up there to get the stands I brought little ropes to tie around them so the drawers wouldn’t slide out.  One had drop leaves so I hitched those closed too.  I let the sales girl carry the light one for me.  I took the heavy one.  At the top of the stairs I could hear Caroline commenting (carrying on?) about my rolled rugs that were now part of her extensive collection of things she

            Did not buy.

            The woman who managed the sale; the head mistress of the estate sale; the organizer (?).  I couldn’t tell.  She appeared.  She always kept her back to me when we were both in the same, of several, rooms.  I sensed the sales staff did not mention that I was actually buying things.  That was fine by me.  I didn’t want to talk to her anyway.  Caroline, of course, engaged in discourse.  Or just course?  Or was it ‘horse’

            Play on her part when she told She that she had

            “PLANNED”

            “To photograph the ROOMS”

            But now found them too “old”.

            That’s what Caroline said the rooms were; ‘too old’.

            The head sale mistress did face Caroline when she said that but

            She said nothing.

            Caroline then “weighed in”, she notified, on the condition of the

            Whole (estate) building.

            “Renovation is not the word”.

            “I am just conducting the contents sale.” the mistress said and this smothered Caroline’s real estate fire.

            “The water’s been turned off so none of the toilets work” I heard her say to Caroline.  From another room.  I didn’t hear what prompted that.  But I could guess.  “That should move her along” I said to myself but I

            Had to qualify that by further self notice that

            Caroline is one who would use a toilet

            Anyway.
            “Can you imagine having a sale like this with no toilet?”

            Caroline said

            To me while we stood in the room of what was used as a television den.  By television den I mean the old style; first set apart for the television about nineteen sixty and then used for that, without alteration, until the modern era of media viewing seems to have

            Created a decline of this

Historic American room type.

            This one was ‘untouched’.  I, for example, noticed it still had a shelf full, on a small bookcase, of ‘old’ “TV GUIDES”.  “That’s not old” Caroline had told my back when I rummaged the GUIDES.  She thought I was rummaging the bookcase?  “It’s a pretty crummy bookcase.” I said.

            “What would you expect.” said Caroline.  “You know there was once quite a bit of silver in here.”

            “You bought it?”

            “No.  First they took it to an auctioneer in Portland but ended up selling it down in Portsmouth.”

            “What was it?” I asked.

            “Their SILVER.” Caroline said.

            I am stupid aren’t I.

            I went through the cupboards in the kitchen with the sales girl in charge of managing that space.   Caroline had popped in and said “Dreadful” and used the wording ‘rip it out’ to convey her insight on that household space.  There was a toilet off of that room and think that is where

            Caroline went.

            I didn’t go in there; that toilet, to ‘look around’  So I guess we’ll never know.

            There was a three car garage with one bay long used as a storage region.  That took some time for me to poke through.  I sort of lost track of Caroline then but she was still around so must have been ‘talking’

            With someone.  Now she went back to following me.  There was a glassed-in porch with a few old wicker chairs shuffled among the not-so-old ‘other’ chairs.  “I’m thinking about these.”  Caroline said to me.

            I didn’t think about them.  Caroline noted that.  “They’ll go well in your collection.” I said

            Of things she did not buy.

            “You don’t do anything with drapery do you.” Caroline said to me.  In the dining room.  As we looked out the windows.  Together.  “I know:  They’re expensive and have to be done right.” She supplied.

            Me

            With

            As support for being stupid.

            There was nothing in the dining room except an English breakfront that had been ‘substantially’ marked down from its ‘original appraisal price’.  “Worth considering.” I said and Caroline’s head shot around to look at me,  I just said that to fool with her.

            When I came across the bridge, past where the accident had been, one of those flatbed wreckers had a car up on it with it’s whole front end smashed to smithereens.  I drove around that and went along.  It wasn’t slippery on the road.  Just the bridge had frozen up.  I guess.  

            About a mile later, because I’m so stupid, only then did I realize that “I think that was Caroline’s car!”

            An hour latter I found out it was her car.  And she was dead.