Left handed gloves

I've lived in Kansas for over 17 years. As a child, my family was mobile and I saw much of the country. I attended schools too numerous to list from Texas to Pennsylvania and I have some idea that people may think differently in places other than the wheat state. One morning I got out of bed and went to an estate sale. A friend had asked me to go and some part of me must have been curious, nostalgic or something. Whatever the feeling was, it was sufficient to get me dressed and driving to the small town of Buhler a few miles down the road. As I approached the venue I could see that parking was going to be an issue. I was only 15 minutes early and the sea of auction fans were parked and already in a high state of milling around. My friend saw my truck, yes I have a truck. I like my truck. It is an extended-cab GMC with leather seats and a nice camper shell. The author Roger Schank, upon recieving a ride to his hotel from me after a day of training asked me: " Why would you drive something like this?" This has me re-examining my feelings toward the vehicle. For now, I love my truck. As I walked through the crowd looking over the various wagons, covered with the debris of a human life, I scanned for items that might connect to any need I might have. I never got a number card that would entitle me to bid on anything but I knew that if I really wanted something my friend could bid for me. The items on the wagons were very diverse, ranging from hand-tools to neo-egyptian lamps. I could see the moments in the lives of these people. I love the things at country auctions, the evidence of bad and good decision making on the part of one family. You could study the impact of commercial television just from the sudden appearance of the slogan "as seen on tv" on the merchandise on the wagons. As I looked around I saw a box of new gloves, some of leather, matching the seats in my truck. I was teetering, did I need these, winter always came eventually and I might do something requiring gloves. I asked my friend what he thought. These are very nice I said, "they are all left handed" he said. What! I exclaimed. I didn't doubt him for he'd been here earlier than me and was a seasoned auction-goer. "The guy had only had a right hand so he accumulated left hand gloves" he added. I was amazed, the only person who would be remotely interested in this enticing box was someone who had lost their right hand. I scanned the audience for anyone fitting this description and I actually saw a man some thirty or so minutes later who was missing a hand. Having a missing apendage is somewhat common in the world of tractors, augers and other large, powerful tools. The only problem was the man was also missing his left hand. I considered the odds. Here was a box of gloves, only interesting to a person missing their right hand. In the crowd there is a man missing a hand but the wrong hand! I grieved for the lonely box that took years to fill. I spent another hour there watching and listening and writing the experience to my mind's paper, the families, children, old men and auctioneers. The smell of burgers frying in the make-shift cafe were calling me as I listened to the sound of the auctioneer. His pitch rose and fell and it was musical. He prodded the assembly with phrases like "that's nearly new" and "what a deal for a whole box of crescent wrenches". I was witnessing a concert of sorts, where people come for the chance to win an item at a low price, while listening to the artistic salespitch of the auctioneer. The prose of grass and flies and little amish kids in wagons combined with the smell of burgers and lubricating oil and the dust of a Saturday morning in a small Kansas town. I took a snapshot and came home to write it down, clumsily at best but a sketch for now. There is something amazing about the selling of a person's life in public. The estate sale is the ultimate humanizer, all you have is separated onto wagons and picked through without your opinion or permission and deemed worthy or not by whoever visits on that day. I feel sad in a way for the person who accumulated all of these things. While it is nature's way to repurpose the stuff on this planet as it will, I still feel sorry for the left handed gloves.