2001-10-05

Escaping reality

I was driving home from the auction tonight (where I work on Fridays) and I saw a billboard for a television channel. It was advertising a new tv show, and in huge letters across the top it read: "Escape Reality!". This struck me as funny. At least they are telling it like it really is, no sugar coating. "Is your life boring? Are you all out of beer and ludes? Well, escape reality by watching our lame programs!"

I like watching the telly...don't get me wrong. I love the escapism movies provide me too. I enjoy reading fiction to take me to a place that isn't the breakroom at my work. The billboard just kind of jolted me into thinking about where I stand on this whole reality thing. I decided tonight that I should start focusing on the actual events going on around me for entertainment.

Take the auction, for example. I have had this lil' gig for almost five years now. I show up, I hold up items while people bid on them. This is no Sotheby's, and Christy's it ain't. This is pure flea market garbage most of the time, with a few really nice antique pieces mixed in for flavor. In a little unpresuming building in Marietta, Georgia lies the weirdest four hours of a Friday night you will ever spend. Okay, I am used to it by now, but sometimes I just have to stop and take in whats going on. In a room jam packed with people stuffed into plastic lawn chairs, there are bright flourescents lighting the stage for an endless parade of crap, um, I mean items being sold at break neck speed. Jerry the auctioneer sells the items loudly and quickly, in his thick southern drawl, garbled into seemingly nonsense words that only the trained ear could possibly understand. Jerry even throws in jokes in between calls for "17.50 do I hear 20?" the same damn jokes I hear every other Friday for the past five years of my life are always funny when mixed with the special ambiance of VNA auction."Put it in the men's room!" Is said about any item that nobody bids on. I've never actually been in the men's room there, but I love the idea that the duck lamp I tried to sell is in there now, lighting up that weird velvet painting from last week that didn't sell either.

The head of this whole operation is Al, owner and operator of the auction house. I love Al and his wife Myrna, they are the nicest people... and their actions at the auction are fun and stressful all at the same time. Myrna gets all worked up when the runners don't give her the info she needs , and she will scream, and pull at her hair. Myrna's face will turn red until she can't take it anymore, she relieves herself by sipping her soda. Al stands at the front, a booming voice, smiling wildly, the ringleader of this circus. Al wears a diffrent bolo tie to every auction. His father died, and left him his collection of all these uh, interesting bolo ties. Just because I know you are wondering: Is Al a cowboy? No. He is a retired Jewish guy. Tonight Al's bolo tie was an amazing sheep, or ram, made of mother of pearl and turquoise. The thing is huge. It is the size of an apple I am guessing. The ring people are bumbling around and bumping into one another all night, just trying to keep the fast pace set by the auctioneer.

Oh, the people! I love watching these people! Where else are you going to find a prim antique shop owner, with a magnifying glass ready to inspect pieces, sitting along side the mullet sporting nascar fan, buying cheap boxes of tube socks for his flea market table? Nowhere I tell you! Except Al's auction.

I love the auction. That's why I'm writing about it tonight, instead of watching tv.