Antique Store

Hello Dear Readers!

Today I was fortunate to participate in the great American pastime, antiquing!  With my friend Vic!  I met Vic last week after the unfortunate incident that sent me to the local urgent care, where Vic works as the intake coordinator.  Let us speak no more of this.

    Vic’s partner, Jason, is visiting his mother at hospice care today, but Vic refuses to go because he says Jason's mother is “bigoted old coot’.  So I get the benefit of his company.  Hooray for bigotry!

    Vic is taking me to Mitchell’s Antique Barn, near the highway.  Vic’s knowledge about antiques comes mostly from Jason, who inherited his grandfather’s antique gun collection.  Mine comes mostly from watching Antique Roadshow.

He picked me up in his 1997 Ford Taurus at my apartment.  On the drive across town, we discussed the strangest things he's ever seen working at urgent care(Ewww!), the ending of Lost(awesome!), and the best cheese for making grilled cheese sandwiches(smoked gouda!).  He was on the lookout for an old pipe to give to his hipster younger brother as a birthday present.  I was looking for something strange with an aura of foreboding.  Or new old lamp to spruce up my apartment now that I’ve been making friends.

    The Antique Barn turned out to be less of a barn and more of an old house with peeling paint and a sagging porch.  But the inside was everything you could hope for.  The door had an adorable bell that rang when opened.  When we stepped inside it smelled of dust, old paper, and wood varnish.  The store was crammed from wall to wall with furniture and cabinets of various kinds.  Each one of those was stacked to ceiling all sorts of odds and ends.  It was kind of place that if you sneezed everything might collapse and crush you at any moment.  It was charming!

    We moved along the cramped rows, trying on old ladies’ hats, poking taxidermied animals in their glass eyes, and trying not to break anything.  Vic found a collection of pipes and had to choose between an oriental brass pipe and a wooden one carved to look like a mermaid.  I recommended the mermaid and he wisely took my advice.

    I was busy rummaging through the drawers of old cabinets and desks hoping to find some long forgotten eldritch texts or parts for a medieval computer, but dear readers, today was simply not my day.  Or so I thought (foreshadowing!).  With no evil artifacts in sight I had to make due with the purchase an art deco lamp (Susie I will text you pictures).  The shade is composed of several large colorful glass panels while the base is chrome and features streamlined curves.  I think it will class up my apartment a bit.

    When we had our fill of looking at overpriced glassware and knick-knacks we made our way to the register at the front of the store where we paid the clerk who looked like the human equivalent of a raisin (Mitchell perhaps?).  Near the register, there was an old cigar box filled with old keys, the skeleton kind.  I sifted through them while Vic paid for his pipe.

They all had very interesting designs.  One was so intricate that I couldn’t help turning it over and over again in my hand, trying to follow the branching twists of metal.  Like some type of Gordian knot.  It seemed to form a symbol of some kind, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I must have been enjoying myself while looking at the beautiful key more than I realized because Vic nudged me.  When I looked up, both he and the human raisin were staring at me.  I dropped the key back in the box and paid for my lamp.  The clerk was kind enough to plug the lamp in to make sure it worked.  And it did!

After that, Vic and I hit a local drive-thru. We toasted our purchases with french fries, then parted ways.

Postscript

Okay dear readers, bear with me a moment.  After my very first antiquing adventure, Vic dropped me off at my apartment.  I promptly went to write this post before any of the myriad of technicolor details faded from my memory.  When I finished with that, I ordered a pizza.  With a food source secured I tried to plug in my new antique lamp before the pizza delivery man or woman arrived.  While attempting to find the best location to place the lamp I noticed a small button on the underside of the base.  Not being the type of person to ever leave a button unpushed, I pushed it.  To my disappointment, nothing happened.  I pushed and unpushed it several times with no results.  Then I pressed the secret button AND then pulled the regular cord for the light.

Would you believe it, a strange colored light came from the lamp!  I tilted it back and looked underneath the shade, something I had no reason to do previously.  I saw a second, smaller light bulb.  It was asymmetrical and an opaque pinkish-lavender color.  What a treat!  The second bulb at no extra cost.  And a hidden mystery switch.

    Further examination of the lamp a found yet another surprise!  Stamped on the bottom it read “Newton Manufacturing Company”.  That’s the name of the old factory that shut down.  My new old lamp was made right here in my new hometown!  So exciting!

The light it gave off seemed odd in a way that I can’t fully describe.  When holding my hand underneath it, it almost seemed like I could see my bones through my skin, but not quite.  So today wasn’t a total bust after all in the strange and unusual department!  I think my pizza is here.  Spinach and Ricotta.

I’ll keep you updated!

FUN FACT

Kevin’s Crossing used to be known as Newton until a few decades ago when it changed its name after bad publicity from a terrible scandal.