The Unencumbered Estate
And on the tenth day, the air conditioner was allowed a day of rest. The heat wave has given pause here today But I fear it’s going to be a brief respite following the last nine days of temperatures above 90 degrees. Apparently we haven’t experienced a heat wave like this since the late 1800’s. Hot Damn indeed! Of course, it was only natural that we would hold our garage sale on the hottest day of the year. Luckily this thing was billed as a ‘garage sale’ and not a ‘yard sale’ which meant that we could take cover all day in the hot box that was our garage. Fortunately, the heat did not discourage the masses from flocking to our goods. By all accounts the day (see photos) was a huge success. The craigslist geeks came early shouting with deep lisps, “hey there fellow Craigslister!!”, at once giving that title a heavy air of dorkiness that made me regret my loose affiliation immediately. Luckily, they all bought a lot of crap. The kids were the best part of the sale. They singlehandedly suckered their sweltering parents into shucking out cash for items I’m 100% sure they didn’t even know the purpose of. One boy used some jedi mind trick on his parent to buy a complete set of silverware. Silverware! What 12 year-old boy needs a complete set of silverware?

Anticipating the heat of the day, I stocked a cooler with ice cold bottled water and cokes. Sold ’em for 25 cents a piece I did. This turned out to be the deal closer. Overheated bodies became so happy once hydrated that they didn’t even think twice before paying full price for hair curlers, broken lamps, and used garden edging.

After the sale we were flush with money and dying for that special kind of super-powered air conditioning that can only be found in megaplex theaters. We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was terrific. Johnny Depp owns Wonka. He’s alarmingly good. His Wonka character was so good in fact that I was kinda bummed that it was tethered to the plot of the movie, which was familiar. I wanted to see Johnny’s Wonka outside the boundaries of the script. I propose a movie be made called something like; “The Mad Adventures of The Johnny Four”, it would be co-directed by Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton and would star only Johnny Depp. The four main characters would be Johnny’s Willie Wonka, Hunter S. Thompson, Captain Jack Sparrow, and Don Quixote. They would be a merry band of travelers cruising different geographical locations and historical/futuristic time periods. Along the way they would run into and have adventures with all the other characters Johnny has ever played – like the 21 Jump Street guy, Edward Scissorhands and Donnie Brasco. Think about it. It would be kick ass!