Rummage Sale Day

Residents have been working hard all week, scouring garages and patio storage areas for items they wished to sell at this morning’s Rummage Sale -- the first they’ve been allowed to have since 2013, when new management took over and the Big Guy from Corporate announced, in the takeover meeting, we’d not be allowed to have activities and installed Nurse Ratched as the Community Manager to reinforce his decree.

For a long time after, we indeed didn’t have any activities, which prompted long-time residents to flee to other communities in bulk until it began to look like a ghost town around here with so many vacancies.

A lot has happened since then, including complaints to county, state, federal watchdog agencies having to do with rights of the elderly – none of which appeared to bear fruit until late last year, when Nurse Ratched was escorted off the premises by that same Big Guy and a new Community Manager installed.

Since then, there’s been a turnaround. We once again have a waiting list to get a unit in the community and activities once enjoyed are returning -- somewhat.

I say somewhat because the activities are not on the same high level we once had -- events are potluck instead of catered, music is no longer a d-jay but the resident I refer to as The Seer brings her boom box and cd’s, and instead of notices in the newspaper and a sign outside announcing a rummage sale, the sale is just for us residents, which I feel is going to mean a lot of work with little reward for our seniors.

I’d not planned to attend, but the woman I helped decorate a wooden egg at the Egg Coloring Party advised she was a Damsel in Defense consultant and would have self-defense devices at her table.

Walking into the Community Room, I felt bad for the residents because there were some nice items at the various tables. Items that, had the public been invited, would have been snapped up quick fast in-a-hurry but which, with just us buying, most of which will head back to storage – like jewelry, handbags, pots/pans, dishes, crystal glasses, collectibles and an impressive collection of pins one old guy was offering up, of which this is only a sampling.

He also had medals, all of which his items looked like they might be worth something and should be on Ebay.

I myself spotted a trio of hand-carved wooden elephants. I’m not necessarily into elephants, but I do know they’re good chi, so because the mom had her trunk down (bad chi), I only took the two little ones, with upturned trunks, at the bargain price of 50 cents each.

The Damsel in Defense table had nothing that interested me – a road trip flashlight and door alarm, which I don’t need; pepper spray, which I already have, and some sort of stick one pokes an assailant with. I was more interested in a device that would encourage an assailant to not get up close and personal, like a distance stun gun, so I passed.

After returning to my unit, I researched the poking stick and learned it’s a kubotan martial arts tool, billed as “A sharp strike to a bony part of the body, groin, stomach, solar plexus, throat, the arm, the shin, hip bone, collarbone, ankle and kneecap will stop an assailant in his tracks”. Still wasn’t what I was looking for but, after some of the experiences I’ve had, any self-defense device is a good device, so I went back and bought one for $5.00.

While there, I noticed someone had bought the mother elephant.

Guess they didn’t know about the bad chi of a downward trunk.

Having been told by an older lady, who saw me buy the elephants, that not only was I correct about the trunks, but that I should place them by and towards the front door to “lure money in”, that windfall having not yet kicked in -- as a mountain of paperwork continues to go back and forth, I followed her instructions and positioned the elephants on the counter by the front door.

And yes, that is an upturned (good chi) horseshoe over the front door.