Hunting Ducks

I have spent most of the day excavating inventory in my garage. I have piles of items spread out across the driveway and have not made much more than a little dent on the accumulated mass. Now I am in the house writing this blog mostly as an effort to avoid going back outside and putting the pieces back into the garage. They are predicting snow again tomorrow so leaving the stuff in place is really not an option.

I have been attempting to clear my garage and other accumulation points for more than a year now. But it seems that more stuff flows in as soon as any spot is cleared. How does this happen?

Collecting antiques, or the junk that I have that sometimes passes for antiques, is more like hunting than any other activity. There is the thrill of the chase. I love to attend auctions. It is a social event, a treasure hunt and a competitive opportunity. As in hunting, knowledge and experience can give you a significant edge over the competition. And as in hunting sometimes you get nothing and other times you can't believe your good luck. But the greatest similarity with hunting is the simple fact that the shooting is much more fun than the cleaning and cooking.

The spoilage rate on the garnered antiques is considerably lower than that of ducks. I suppose that there are hunters with a freezer full of ducks, but almost every collector has an overflow of inventory. That's because the ducks go bad and have to be tossed while the stuff can just pile up forever.

I am stuck in the perfect storm of accumulation. I have been collecting for years. I have no wife to put the brakes on my accumulation. I have sufficient capital to buy what I want. And I have no real social life outside of the auctions. The thrill of the hunt has brought me to the point of drowning in the spoils. So what do I do? I clear a small space in the garage and then attend 3 auctions and fill the space up and more.

Now I have entered into the the shabby business. Will this new endeavor help me clear my inventory? Or will the answer to the oft asked question "what are you going to do with all this stuff?" remain the same? That's an estate problem and I'll still be dead.

Mr. Flannery