23 May, 2016

A “Titanic” find….Our hearts sank, but the Ship didn’t!

 

Hey Jodie, you just might get a kick out of this little story of the occurrence at the Antique Mall I had just yesterday. (smile)  It was Sunday, and I was feeling pretty good, albeit a bit tired because of the overall activity of my weekend.  It was one in which rigorous energy was allocated to the cleaning out of my garage over the course of three days….at last!!

I had not gone completely through the numerous boxes of stuff that I had packed away (okay, not packed, but randomly without any modicum of organization just tossed into) during the process of moving into this place 5 years ago!!  Can you believe that??  I won’t lie to you and claim that I “consciously decided” to undertake this activity.  I just sort of began clearing out stuff while looking for some object that I thought was somewhere in the garage!!

Anyway….as I write to you now I still have 6 boxes to go through, but I want to write this installment because it is so fresh in my memory.  As a reward to myself for doing such a wonderful job of getting rid of a ton of crap, (smile) I determined that a nice leisurely trip to one of my antique malls might be a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  I didn’t know exactly what (or even if) I would find anything that I would add to the collection, but I was certain that I would like to just mindlessly peruse the mall and let things happen as they may.

The first item that caught my attention was a “Sitting Cat”, and it was appealing….but I have a large number of Cats and thought I’d pass on this one in the hopes of finding something more unusual.  Then, there was a “Waterford Cowboy Boot”….nice but I’m not really a Cowboy Boot guy!!  Maybe if I find a six-shooter, I might pair it up later with the boot and perhaps a sheriff badge and call it something like “High Noon” (in reference to the famous movie).  For now though, I had no problem saying “git along little doggie” to the boot….or should I have said I had no problem “giving the boot” to the boot!! (ha,ha,ha,ha)  Boy….I crack myself up!!

Next I came upon a Dolphin, and definitely didn’t need another one of those right now.  So the afternoon is starting to ooze on by, and then I saw it!!  From a distance I could tell it was an ocean liner of some sort (it certainly didn’t have the profile of one of my sailboats), and I thought wow….that’s not an item you will see every day at all!!  When I walked up to the glass case, I was immediately pumped up.  This is a Waterford Crystal replica of the Titanic on a base.  The first thing that hit me was “Man….I’d love to have that, but I know it won’t be cheap.  Waterford ain’t no joke….even used pieces are pricey!!”

I saw the price (which I won’t tell you of course), and figured that while I don’t have the cash on me, I will ask the mall people if they plan to have a Memorial Day Weekend sale.  I knew this was a high probability because it was how I acquired the New Year’s Day Sailboat.  Turns out they were indeed going to have a sale, I was kinda pumped because I figured I’d have a shot at whatever the sale price would be by the owner of the booth.

I was very surprised when Diana (the saleslady) said “Yes, we’re planning to have a sale this weekend, but why don’t you ask the owner what she might be willing to discount you today??  She’s right over there!!”  What were the odds that the owner would be right there on the spot for me to speak with??

This very nice lady was quite gracious.  I learned that her name is Mary, and when I told her that I was very interested in the Titanic she said, “Already??  I just placed it in there a few minutes ago!!”  I said, “Would you be willing to consider a bit of a discount off the price you’ve asked??”  She said, “Well I was going to discount all items 15% next weekend, so you can go ahead and purchase it now with that discount!”

I was happy that she was willing to let me have it early, so the deal was set.  Mary goes to the glass case and unlocks it.  She reaches for the Titanic and lifts it off the shelf, and pulls it out of the case.  All of a sudden we (there’s another worker standing near both of us.  His name is Michael) watch stunned as we see the shelf that the Titanic was sitting on CRASH down inside the case, and on top of the items underneath!!  The noise startled the hell out of us!! (smile)

We were (for a split second) frozen where we stood….nobody moved, or said anything for what seemed like forever!!  All our hearts stopped as we tried to see if anything underneath was broken, and we were really thankful when we discovered that nothing was damaged!!  Immediately both Mary and I said “Boy….what if the Titanic had still been on the shelf??”  Needless to say, we were all quite relieved after we calmed down!! (ha,ha,ha,ha)

Here’s something else you’ll find interesting.  I mentioned to both Diana and Mary that this incident will make for a really good story when I write the chronicle installment.  They asked about the chronicles, and both said they thought it was a really great idea.  They also said that they think a lot of people might find a series of writings like that quite entertaining.  Needless to say, I felt really good about their assessment of the possibilities for such a project!! (smile)

I have no idea when the next installment will be right now…but you can be sure that if the bug hits me again like it did today, you’ll be reading another installment pretty soon!!