Geezer's Corner: Hidden Treasures

Geezer’s Corner:

When I was young and going to school, I got a great deal of enjoyment reading novels like “Treasure Island”, “Count of Monte Cristo” and other similar novels about hunting and finding treasure. As I grew older, and with the advent of TV, I became a fan of Jacque Cousteau and the Discovery Channel.

It was exciting to see the divers explore underwater wrecks in the search for sunken treasure. I even tried Scuba diving, perhaps with the thought of searching for sunken treasure in the back of my mind. I decided that Scuba diving probably wasn’t for me when I took my tanks to be recertified and the valve exploded out of the top of the tank. You have to pay attention to omens.

Basically I gave up on treasure hunting until lately when I began watching “Storage
Wars” and “Storage Wars Texas”. Wow! Those guys were finding treasures every week and they didn’t have to spend huge sums of money for a boat and diving equipment, or travel to far off places in search of treasure. I decided to give Storage Auctions a try.

I began scouring the legal notices in our local newspaper for notices of Storage Auctions. I finally found one that had been posted, and cash in hand I headed out to find some treasure. On the way, I had to stop at my favorite espresso stand for an espresso. The line was long but I had given myself plenty of time to get to the Auction on time. With my espresso in hand I was ready to pursue my fortune. Traffic was heavy and I arrived at the Auction about 5-minutes late.

As I parked my car and headed toward the office, about 15-people came out of the office heading towards the parking lot. One of the people told me that the storage auction had been only for a single car, and that the auction was over. Lesson learned, you don’t want to show up late for a Storage Auction.

Undaunted, I returned to scouring the paper for more auctions. It took about 3-weeks to find another auction, and it was early in the morning, 8:00 a.m. I was up at 5:00 a.m. and arrived at the auction in plenty of time. When I arrived I noticed several other cars in the parking lot with treasure hunters like myself. All of us sat patiently in our cars until 7:00 a.m. when the storage lot opened. By 7:00 a.m. about 50-people had arrived at the storage lot. The competition was going to be tough but I had watched “Storage Wars”. I knew my stuff. I had brought $500.00 cash with me along with a good strong flashlight.

At 8:00 a.m. the Auctioneer went through his instructions (just like TV). All of us bidders crowded towards the door of the storage unit, poised to find that treasure that no one else had noticed. When I could finally see into the storage unit, all I saw was several piles of old dirty clothes. The Auctioneer began the bidding at $50.00.

Nobody bid at $50.00 and I noticed that the ranks of bidders were thinning out quickly. The bidding quickly went from $50.00, to $25.00, to $10.00, to $5.00 and then $1.00. Apparently none of the treasure hunters had seen a treasure that I hadn’t seen. When the bidding reached $1.00 with nobody bidding the manager of the storage unit offered to pay $5.00 for someone to clean out the locker and haul off the dirty clothes. No bidders there either.

I took this experience as another omen, like my experience with the scuba tanks. No more “Storage Wars” for me. I’m going to be a pacifist.