Erie Sucks

This weekend was unfun. Friday morning, I caught a plane to Cleveland (which, as far as I can tell, does not rock, despite what Drew Carey may otherwise try to tell you), and then rented a car to drive 2 hours to Erie, PA so that I could help my mom and aunt with the estate sale of their dead uncles, who, as far as I could tell, never threw one thing away during their entire lives. Neither of them ever married, and they lived in this house for 50+ years.

Alamo had no compacts (as I assumed when I reserved one), so I got a Pontiac G6 coupe, which was pretty nice. No less than two minutes after I pulled out of the rental car parking lot, I saw what I assume will never been seen again: two white, mid- to late-'80s Chevrolet Caprice Estate Wagons driving next to each other. As far as I could tell, this was not a coordinated event, as one of them turned onto the road after the other one was already there. I took a picture to prove this monumental occasion:

I got to Erie around 3 on Friday. From there, my weekend pretty much sucked. The veritable stench of death, rot, moth balls, and broken dreams permeated the house. The house itself is pretty nice, although at some point they split in two so that they could have a duplex and rent out the upstairs. Hence, they have a stairway to nowhere in their living room. While this was really cool when I was a kid, I have now come to the conclusion that they completely ruined the house by chopping it in half.

The highlight of my time there included:

• I saw a bluejay on a tree in the backyard

Other things that happened include the following:

• On Friday, I moved a whole bunch of crap from a Blair Witch-esque basement to the main floor of the house or outside onto the porch. Nearly 40% of it actually sold.
• Apparently my great uncles liked to can their own fruit. In one of the cupboards in the basement, I found about 50 mason jars full of peaches, pears, and jellies, dating as far back as 1969.
• They also liked to make wine, as evidenced by the two 5-gallon glass jugs of vintage 1965 homemade wine that they were apparently saving for a special occasion that never occurred.
• My mom and aunt hired a neighborhood teenager to help me move shit out of the basement on Friday. He came over wearing a knit hat and a long-sleeve shirt, despite the fact that it was 80+ degrees and 75% humidity. For reasons that are still unclear to me, he spoke like a valley girl. His favorite expression, which he pretty much used in response to anything, even when it really didn't make any sense for him to say it, was "I was like, ummm, yeah." While he does hold a high school diploma and will be attending art school in San Diego at some point in the future, he wasn't all that bright, so I am almost certain that he has no idea that he'll be eagerly fellating men in less than five years, not that there's anything wrong with that.
• Saturday morning, I was jarringly introduced to the psychosis of antiquers. The sale didn't start until 10. That's what the signs said; that's what the ads said. Nonetheless, people started showing up at 8:30, pestering us while we were putting stuff out on the front lawn and getting ready. Some mustached fiftysomething hard-on wearing an LA "Daw-gers" hat with a flat bill and his barrel-shaped wife asked me at least 5 times whether or not we were about ready to open up. Each time, I told them that we weren't starting until 10. By the time 10 rolled around, there was a line 50 deep, even though it was raining. The aforementioned mustached man, who was first in line, actually rang the doorbell and screamed through the screen door, "It's 10 o'clock! Open up!" Then they bought nothing. I hope they died on the way back to their house.
• Also on Saturday morning, at around 8:45, one of the neighbors ("Don") from across the street came over and asked if he could help us set up. Of course, we said, even though we had never met him. We had not priced any of the myriad tools that we were selling, so we made the mistake of asking Don if he knew anything about tools. It is still unclear to me whether he does or not, but he spent an hour with my aunt, going through every tool and telling us how much we should charge. Apparently, Don's ability to price old tools is about as good as Larry Flynt's ability to dunk a basketball. His prices were so prohibitive as to discourage bargaining in any manner. I eventually had to mark all of the tools half off, and even then, they were too expensive.
• Saturday night I had two dinners because "no thanks" is a phrase with which old Italian women are not familiar. After we ate at the nextdoor neighbors' house, we went to visit some family friends, a 90-year-old Italian woman and her seventysomething niece. As you would expect, they made 2 cookie-sheet-sized pizzas for the 5 of us, even though we told them we wouldn't be eating with them. I was also asked 147 times whether I wanted anything to drink, followed by "you sure?" after I said no. Eventually I just got a glass of water so they would pipe down. I am very grateful that Jessie is not Italian.
• Luckily on Sunday I got to leave before the sale started because I had to get back to the Mistake By The Lake to catch my flight home. From the airplane, although I had a window seat, I could not tell if the river was on fire.

This whole weekend made me realize one thing: I never want to go to Erie again.