Going…and gone.

I’ve wondered for a number of years why I hang onto my china and crystal.  I’ve used them only a couple of times.  We simply don’t live a lifestyle where formal entertaining happens…or is likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

Our china was given to us by my parents after our wedding.  Dad bought it for my grandmother (his mother-in-law) on a trip to Japan with the Navy many years ago.  It’s beautiful.  If I were to choose china, I wouldn’t choose differently.

A complete service for twelve, plus serving dishes, plus six ash trays.  (Ash trays!  Ha!)

We registered for our crystal when we got married.  It seemed the thing to do – we had a complete set of china, after all.  I love the pattern.

As beautiful as these pieces are, however, they’ve seemed increasingly redundant as time has passed.  So, with the onset of unemployment, and the increasing realization that we would likely use them only a handful of times over our entire marriage (and with Mom & Dad’s blessing), we decided to sell them.

After two complete rounds on Craigslist with no takers, we decided to look into a local auction house.  So, they went to auction, and on Sunday, so did we.

And now, we arrive at the main point of this post.  Oh, my goodness, auctions are so much FUN!  The enjoyment of watching the bidding and buying process effectively wiped out the niggling sentimentality of seeing “my” pieces displayed for others to bid on.  My rear end was numb after twenty minutes on wooden high-school-issue bleachers, but I was entranced.  Jason finally dragged me away after three hours, just after we saw the china sell.  For less than we’d hoped for, yes, but no less than I realistically thought it would go for in this economy.

I would love to go to the monthly auction and just watch.  Spend all day wondering which lot would be put up next, and will it go for practically nothing, or would it be outside my price range if I had money to spend?

No other point to this, really.  It was just plain fun.  I am imagining myself in the years ahead, heading to auctions as I feel like it, finding an end table here and a footstool there.  Is that a silly dream?  It’s a simple one, anyway, but the simple pleasures are the easiest to achieve, yes?