They don't want it but You do

[digitS']

My favorite old coat is falling apart and now I'm going to have to throw it out!



Or, sew it's seams ...

I guess that there has been a study of inheritance showing that heirs generally want nothing their parents have collected. I know that DD said that she told Grandpa that she only wanted his old Dodge pickup. He sold it during the last year of his life for $1000. Maybe he forgot ... DB asked for his posthole digger. I got his "Swiss army" knife because he handed it to me but it was only after he had been gone almost 2 years that I realized how useful it is! The offspring, generally, don't want our "stuff."

So, what are we doing with it? Counting the little garden at home, at one time I had as many as 4 different garden locations. Only one was a community garden where visitors from the park would wander thru and I didn't feel it was "safe" to leave things there. So, I had the "at home" hoses and sprinklers and hoses and sprinklers everywhere else. Even where the big field pipe and sprinklers are, I have a little sprinkler in the "windward" corner.

They don't last forever and begin to malfunction and at that point, I go buy a new one. What do I do with the old one? Keep it . Well, it's not like it quit completely! Sometimes, adjust the pressure and it will work just fine. Why just today! I replaced one of the plastic jobs that has been questionable for the last couple of years with another that has been around here . Now, especially with the metal ones - I probable have 10 spares.

If you think that it's bad enough that your microwave is collecting data and the TV is spying on you ...



... the vaccum cleaner has been gathering dirt on you for years.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

They still want money.

 

[digitS']

Yes.

Sprinkling cash on people is usually favored.

digitS’

 

[Pulsegleaner]

The division of an estate is always fractious. For all intents and purposes, we still have MOST of my GRANDPARENT'S stuff, not because we particularly want it, but because we simultaneously know a lot of it is worth a lot of money and don't have the time or energy to figure out how to work out what the market value actually IS or how best to sell it. I still have my grandpa's stamp collection which has nothing of interest to me (I do collect stamps, but we had very different focuses) but I know is (or was, worth a lot) . But I have no idea how to find out what it is worth (I can't trust a dealer to tell me, they'd just lie to cheat me)* and Mom has some very out of date ideas about how one goes about selling something like that (like you can bring it in to a person and stand there, and he will be able to give you a valuation while you wait). Meanwhile the number of stamp collectors is plummeting, and with it the value of the collection. Pretty soon, it won't be worth the cost of it's value as fire starter.

I likewise assume that, when it happens the division of my parents estate will be a mess too. In all likelihood, my sister will block any attempt to sell ANYTHING and want to keep everything in storage forever (this is assuming circumstances haven't developed to the point where she is the sole beneficiary of everything anyway, including what I own myself.)

*Actually, since I don't know the value of anything, or even what is there, what I would expect is the dealer to, as he goes through, simply steal anything of value and then say the collection is worthless and return it.

 

[flowerbug]

They still want money.

in comparison mosquitoes only take a few withdrawals a year...

 

[flowerbug]

The division of an estate is always fractious. For all intents and purposes, we still have MOST of my GRANDPARENT'S stuff, not because we particularly want it, but because we simultaneously know a lot of it is worth a lot of money and don't have the time or energy to figure out how to work out what the market value actually IS or how best to sell it. I still have my grandpa's stamp collection which has nothing of interest to me (I do collect stamps, but we had very different focuses) but I know is (or was, worth a lot) . But I have no idea how to find out what it is worth (I can't trust a dealer to tell me, they'd just lie to cheat me)* and Mom has some very out of date ideas about how one goes about selling something like that (like you can bring it in to a person and stand there, and he will be able to give you a valuation while you wait). Meanwhile the number of stamp collectors is plummeting, and with it the value of the collection. Pretty soon, it won't be worth the cost of it's value as fire starter.

I likewise assume that, when it happens the division of my parents estate will be a mess too. In all likelihood, my sister will block any attempt to sell ANYTHING and want to keep everything in storage forever (this is assuming circumstances haven't developed to the point where she is the sole beneficiary of everything anyway, including what I own myself.)

*Actually, since I don't know the value of anything, or even what is there, what I would expect is the dealer to, as he goes through, simply steal anything of value and then say the collection is worthless and return it.

if i time it right i get all the cruddy stuff shredded and fed to the worms before i croak and give away the bulk of the good stuff before then.

i still have the bottle collection here collecting it's own dust blanket and colony of cellar spiders. i did make it as far as asking the local historical society if they wanted the collection to auction off to raise money or whatever they want to do with it. some of the bottles were dug by me and most of the others were washed by me after my friend dug them up (he was a big guy who liked to scuba dive for bottles or dig them up, i also enjoyed digging but more often i just hauled dirt and helped him with the boat while he was under i'd try not to run over him, etc.). he was a good person to do things with and i do miss him. we scrubbed about 20 crates of bottles a summer and he let me keep a few here or there so it wasn't a bad way at all to start a collection, but as i kept moving and hauling these boxes of packed away bottles around it was sad that i never really got a chance to look at them very often. now i look up and they're sitting in box tops on top of my bookshelves collecting dust. the few i want i've already got out and around. a few inkwells i will keep and these few others. it's enough... eventually the rest go away. given to someone who wants them or to the historical society. some of them are really only worth going to the recyclers but i remember digging them up or cleaning them so...

where was i? oh yeah, get rid of this crap. one box of old papers a year is shredded and plenty enough for me to do before i start making the mistake of trying to read them again.

the book collection, that's a whole other issue. some of them are nice to have as references and for reading when the internet is down or the library is closed. many of them it has been long enough since i last read them that re-reading them is like the first time. forgotten all the details...

 

[digitS']

Also, there's a "someone should help me with that," followed by, "no, not that way! I'll do it!"

I'm somewhat like that but I try to control it since Dad was so much that way and I could see the drawbacks. What I do is try to think, "How am I ever gonna learn something new if I don't watch someone else do the job?" It helps.

The neighbor showed up on the property where he owns a garage, and nothing else but the land. We use the parking for our garden work, he rents the garage but lives many miles away and there is very little going on there these days. His grandson waters and mows the lawn. Like, 2 days ago.

The old fellow tells me how the mower is set too high. He is there to mow again and made a decision before he left his home on just which of his 2 machines to bring, based on what was used 2 days ago by his grandson, a full-grown man.

Then, he was gonna spray weedkiller on the gravel driveway. He seemed torn between re-spraying the lawn but I pointed out that there was not dandelion one out there. Nevertheless, he had a special mix to kill anything in the surroundings ...

I was fixin to leave when he arrived, first I've seen of him this year. I was glad to get the heck outta there!

Steve

 

[digitS']

 

[flowerbug]

...
Then, he was gonna spray weedkiller on the gravel driveway. He seemed torn between re-spraying the lawn but I pointed out that there was not dandelion one out there. Nevertheless, he had a special mix to kill anything in the surroundings ...

I was fixin to leave when he arrived, first I've seen of him this year. I was glad to get the heck outta there!

Steve

someone sprayed stuff on the fields around us so it smells like a chemical factory here the past few days.

 

[digitS']

The old guy went bald years ago and, for some reason, he still carries a comb.



He just can't part with it.