412: Treasures

He talked me into it. It was C.W.’s idea all along. Please let the record read that he talked me into it.

It started this way.

We were going to do some carpentry project. I don’t even remember what it was now. We met a little after sunrise, me as myself and he as Dan the Handyman, complete with carpenter’s belt.

We opened the door to my shop, and he was crestfallen. The shop is 40 feet by 60 feet and there was hardly a foot of it that was free from stacks of ju…, of things.

“What in the world?” He turned to me and shook his head like a schoolteacher who had just been told that the world was flat. I fidgeted.

“It’s just things we have collected over the years,” I said.

“You couldn’t have collected this much over the years,” he said. “Maybe centuries but not years.”

“Flea Market Fever. It’s a common malady among Americans.”

“Whudafreeksdes,” he said.

“Say what?”

“It roughly translates into ‘someone has slipped off the behavioral tracking mechanism,’ and it is considered a serious malady on Fallonia.”

He studied the mess for a moment. “Well,” he said after this perusal. “Let’s get a path cleared so we can work.” He headed for box loaded to the hilt with National Geographic magazines.

“Wait,” I said. “This stuff doesn’t belong to me.”

He walked over to the partial remains of a small outboard motor from the 1950s. “What’s this?”

“It was on sale for three dollars at a yard sale.”

“Where is the rest of it?”

“Waiting for us at another yard sale? She’s sure that she’ll run across the rest of it someday and can get the thing running.”

“How long have you had it?”

The question took me by surprise. “Let’s see,” I said. I remember moving it from our house on Broadway and that was, …” I did some mental ciphering. “We’ve had it about 30 years.”

He said nothing. He just looked at me and shook his head.

“It’s got to be good for something,” Yes, I said it in a rather weak voice, the one I reserve for explaining why the housework I do doesn't turn out right.

He walked a little farther, kicking short pieces of lumber aside. Spying something of interest, he walked over and picked it up. It was a lightweight ball composed of small pieces of steel wire. He didn’t ask, just held it toward me and cocked his head.

“Pieces of wire,” I said. “Too small to use for anything so far, but they could come in handy someday.” He didn’t move. “You just never know,” I added, again in a weak voice.

He laid it aside. Kicking his way a bit farther, he picked up a photograph in a cheap metal frame. One corner of the frame was loose, and the glass covering the photograph was broken. “Want to explain this one?”

“Sure,” I said. “All it needs is a couple of screws and a new piece of glass.” He didn’t move. “I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

“And when did you come in possession of this treasure?” He said it kind of sarcastically and I considered withholding the information. Instead, I said, “Five or six years ago.”

He looked more closely at the photograph. It was a young man in a navy outfit and hat. A nice looking fellow, I might add.

“A relative?”

 

Yard sale: the root of all evil. - C.W.

“No,” I said. “We have no idea who he was. You just thought he looked lonely.Don't you remember?”

“Let’s clean some of this mess up,” he said, ignoring me. “We need some room to work.

“I’m not sure we oughta.”

“Nonsense,” he said, looking through a box of magazine from early 1980s. “Come on. There’s twenty years of dust on these. It’s been at least that long since someone touched them.”

The next afternoon, we sat watching Casablanca, me for the hundredth time, he for the twentieth. Bogart was about to mention Paris, and C.W. always cried at that point.

I heard someone calling my name from the vicinity of the shop. I told him I would be right back and that he could fill me in on the plot.

The credits were running when I came back. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to go to the dump.”

“We went yesterday. Don’t you remember?”

“I do. That’s the problem.”

“What problem?”

“We’ve go to find the October 1982 edition of The Rural Housewife Magazine.”

“Mind telling me why?”

“There’s a recipe for cornbread gravy in it that someone wants, and that someone is plenty mad.

“I told you we shouldn’t throw her stuff away without asking.”

See also:

Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw Press, Amazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.

401. Riches

Last night C.W. came to me with the most interesting question. He was in the shape of Timmie Joe, the 14-year old nerd. He was well-attired. Somewhere, he had found one of those old pocket protectors that engineering students in college used to wear, the kind that advertised a blueprint shop. I guess they will be collector items now. It meant he was on serious business.

“Why,” he said, “do people who have everything always want more?”

It took me by surprise and I didn’t have a ready answer. “What do you mean?” I said.

“I’ve been asked to determine if there is such a thing as a “satisfaction point,” he said. “Is there a point at which members of your species determine that they have enough and perhaps others might be entitled to some of the remains?”

“That’s a good question,” I said, “and I don’t have a ready answer. Besides, I’m fairly satisfied with my state.”

“Oh?”

I felt a gnawing sensation in my stomach. “Well,” I said, “pretty much so.”

“Oh?”

“What are you getting at?”

“How many guitars do you own?”

I told him and pointed out that I had sold one recently.

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

“And why did you sell it?”

I wanted to look around for help but I knew there were only two of us in the room.

"Uh," I said.

"To care for those who mourn?"

"Uh …"

"To care for the poor in spirit?"

"Uh …"

“Come on,” he said. “Admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“You sold it because you want to buy another, more expensive, one.”

I responded with a weak, “It’s my hobby.”

“So, if it’s a hobby, it’s not hoarding riches?”

“And besides, I don’t own them all, just a few.”

“Would your corporations be willing to stop there with your congressmen and congresswomen?”

I had to think about that. “I don’t imagine they would.” I lowered my head. “At least they haven’t so far.”

“What is with you, your species I mean?”

“What has brought this all on?”

“The Falloonian Elders are intrigued by the resistance to paying taxes on your ddyspikrslouckee.”

“Our what?”

“What they call it roughly translates into a tax on sexual ejaculations of the more fortunate kind granting unearned riches.”

“The what?”

“I call it the ‘lucky sperm tax’ for short. Think about it.”

I did. Realization began to settle on me like the morning sun on a windless morning. “Are you talking about the Estate Tax?”

“Yes. The one that rich kids who inherit their parents’ money hate so much. The riches they acquire because of a lucky sperm. They seem to care not if the less fortunate ones starve.”

“I see.”

“They have much, do little, and demand more. How can you give more to those who have plenty? My friend the Galilean has asked me that same question? Isn’t hoarding riches the pastime of a ship of sinners? He says so anyway.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I seem to know a certain, uh, a certain, let’s see, a certain alien let’s say with quite a collection of Heather Graham photographs.”

He fidgeted. “Maybe it’s because she looks like Mrs. Big Dope.”

Maybe it’s because you have plenty of them but it’s not enough. Why don’t you delete some of them?”

“Hey,” he said with great deal of merriment, “what say we go to the guitar store tomorrow?”

I do have a point, eh? Can anyone
guess who is who? - C.W.

See also:

Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw Press, Amazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It makes him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.

361. Hoarding's Dangers

It started as a quiet day at the farm yesterday. The most exciting thing should have been the trip C.W. and I took to the county dump to clear away some trash from our place. He loves going to the dump. Says it is the best one-image microcosm of our species. The only way I can describe his chosen form is as the late entertainer Liberace dressed as a supporting character from the old TV series, Green Acres.

Yeah. Real inconspicuous, but I have only limited control over him. Anyway, we arrived and dumped our stuff into the large dumpster. It was only then that I noticed he had brought along a rather long “grabber-reacher” of the type used to pick up trash. “Hey,” he said as he retrieved a long section of rubber tubing and held it before me, “wasn’t Mrs. Big Dope wanting a piece like this for her washing machine?”

Before I could answer, he tossed it into the truck. Then he picked up a partially used package of coffee filters. “Great for straining things in the shop,” had said, tossing it the truck. He did likewise with other items:

- Several plastic storage containers, “You can always use theses.’

- A partially used can of pressurized ether. “Now we can start those diesel tractors on the coldest morning.

- A thermometer. “Remember I broke the one in the shop."

- A box with an inch of kitty litter still in it. “Mrs. Big Dope will thank you for this.”

- A funnel, glass beaker, and a partially used roll of masking tape. “Got to be good for something.” (The hoarder’s anthem—I’ve heard it for more than 40 years).

I noticed the dump operator watching us and persuaded C.W to desist. He pitched a half-used bottle of methanol gasoline additive into truck with a “Just trying to help save money,” and we took off.

We had been driving for a few minutes when I saw a county sheriff’s vehicle on the road with its blue-lights flashing. I started to move to the outside before I saw an officer standing behind the car motioning for me to pull in behind it. I glanced at the speedometer. It showed five miles a hour below the legal limit. “What the …?” I pulled in.

The officer motioned for us to keep our hands visible. C.W. was confused. “What does he want?”

“He wants us to show him our hands.”

“Which ones?”

“The usual two,” I said. “And don’t mention your others. Seeing the officer motion for me to lower the window, I complied. He walked to my side.

“What you boys been up to?” he asked.

C.W. and I spoke at once. I said dumping trash and he asked what business it was of the officer.

“Pay no attention to him,” I said. “He’s not from around here.”

The officer frowned, but said to me, “May I look in your truck bed?”

“Sure.”

Returning after a long inspection, he said. “Got a call you were gathering some interesting stuff.”

“Interesting? How?”

“It’s mostly stuff his wife says she needs,” C.W. said, “for her farming business.”

“And where is this farm?” The officer took out his pad and pen.’’

Before I could stop him, C.W. blurted the address.

“Thanks,” the officer said. “Don’t move.”

He went to his truck and talked on the two-way for several minutes, before returning.

“You boys know what those kinds of things are used for, don’t you?” He paused. "Of course you do."

“Making money. Didn’t you know?” C.W. said. I felt like slapping him.

“Just things around a farm,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

 

This certainly doesn't resemble
a science lab on Falloonia. - C.W.

The officer took a deep breath and exhaled.

“Maybe yes. Maybe no,” he said. “I have no probable cause that you are cooking up a little “meth” out there, but we’ll be watching you. Very close.”

“Hey, that sounds like fun,” C.W. gave him his best entertainer’s smile.

“You can go now,” the officers said. “I figure I’ll see you again. Now have a nice day.”

I drove as fast as the limits allowed toward home, hoping against hope. When I made the last turn, however, I saw a patrol car exiting our drive onto the state highway. Oh dear.

We parked quietly and I made C.W. come with me and sneak into the back door. Alas, we had just made it to the kitchen when a female voice boomed from the front of the house. “You boys better get in here and do some explaining.”

C.W. bounded toward the sound. “Hey,” he said, “guess who we met today?”

Also check out www.allhatnocattle.com

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Revenge

Dear Ask The Alien:

My husband calls me a hoarder. What's worse, he is playing awfully mean tricks on me. Of course I have no hoarding issues. I have no issues at all, except for a slight penchant for revenge. But let me tell you what he did. I'm pretty sure that he threw away one of my "Good Housekeeping" magazines from the early 1980s. I noticed that the stack for that decade has lost height equal to about one volume. If I can crawl over my collection of plastic butter tubs—you know how useful they are for storing things—I plan to search out the stolen issue.

He has also threatened to throw away the portable television that I took to college with me in 1969 because, he says, it hasn’t worked in nearly 30 years. You and I both know that’s no reason to discard a treasured friend. I watched “The Moon Landing” on that television, and I’m going to have it repaired as soon as I find a way through my collection of "L. L. Bean" catalogs. I think I can stand on some of my “World Book Encyclopedia” annual updates and reach it.

My dilemma: I plan to get back at him. Do you think I should use the BB gun I got when I was ten or the slingshot I made in Vacation Bible School when I was eight? Call me a hoarder will he? The very idea.

Signed,
Offended

Dear Offended:
For some reason I feel sure that you have a collection of “Encounter Bats,” I recommend one of the originals which, I believe, came out around 1989. May I further suggest that, in the unlikely event that I know this person, you make sure of the object of your revenge before launching the attack?

Signed, 
The Alien C.W.