by Charlotte Hinger
Last weekend my daughter Michele painted my office. It was a major ordeal because we had a lot of heavy furniture to move out. Talk about sore muscles!
My favorite piece of furniture is an old fashioned library card case. When the Hoxie Public Library moved to a new building, it auctioned off its old furnishings. I loved all the little drawers and the solid construction of this birch cabinet.
I decided to bid a maximum of $100.00 dollars for this gem. Then I reasoned that if someone else really wanted it, that's probably what they would bid, and I had better be $1.00 over that. Then I decided that was the way the competitor would think, so it would be smart to top $101.00 dollars. Would someone else use my same devious reasoning? Really now, it had to end somewhere. I stopped at $102.00
Amazing! I won. The next lowest bid was for $101.00. Someone else had reasoned just like me. It was a silent auction so there was no danger of getting into a heated floor battle.
That was a long time ago. Through the years, I've made good use of all the little drawers. They hold miscellaneous equipment, cassettes, interview tapes, pictures, cables and connectors, business cards, drives, bookplates, and postcards. Just to name a few.
It high time to go through all the drawers individually and throw out anything that is obsolete. For instance, there are speakers that will never work with anything anymore. In fact, as I recall, they never worked with anything in the first place.
The sad part of accumulating stuff is that it's often meaningless to our children and we carry on like we are bestowing them with treasures.
