The Amazon Prime Day deals I missed

I first learned about Amazon.com's "Prime Day" about a week ago. Curious to understand what all the fuss is about, I visited the website three hours before the promotion ended. Here's a sampling of the deals I missed:

RATS!

I have a confession to make: I like rats.

I mean, aside from their (alleged) role spreading the Bubonic Plague, their ability to gnaw through an entire home electrical system and the confetti of poopy pellets they leave behind in attics, what’s not to like? Ah, those black, beady eyes and twitching noses! The veiny, translucent ears! The best part of a rat, however, is his little pink rat hands. They’re so cute, so human-like. I would gladly share a high-five with such a hand if I could do so without risking Hemorrhagic Fever.

My rodentia romance goes way back. From the ages of 12 to 17, I lived in Roswell, Georgia, in a house on a four-acre, fenced lot. The previous owners had constructed an adorable mini barn on the property, presumably to provide shelter for the two goats we inherited with the house. In addition to Bumpy and Dumpy, that barn housed horses, a 300-pound Vietnamese pot-bellied pig and a family of mice.

Although the mice were unexpected guests with a tendency to chew through entire bags of grain, my mom refused to kill them. Instead, we bought and set up rodent cages and provided the freeloaders with complimentary taxi service to a wooded area 15 miles away.

“Be free!” my mother and sister and I shouted as we unlatched the cages. We may have even thrown in a good-bye wave or two.

We didn’t wish to murder the mice, you see. We simply desired to relocate the rodents far enough away that they couldn’t hitchhike back. Alas, I still fret about the poor mice families we inevitably broke up. Would those poor rat moms ever see their poor rat babies again?

Matt does not like rodents. He comes from practical, reasonable stock, the kind that fails to rejoice when a colony of 50,000 bees invades his Florida rental home twice in the same year. Although Bobby, Matt’s dad and our former landlord, might disagree, the holes haphazardly sawed into the ceiling and days of vacuuming up bees the beekeeper inadvertently left behind was well-worth the 10 pounds of honey harvested from our attic. Man, that stuff was fresh!

So when Matt claimed to have spotted a rodent-like creature swinging from the bird feeder outside our kitchen window, I immediately reminded him of our trip to Hawaii, when he mistook a mongoose for a mutant squirrel. Perhaps, like the bee incidents, he’d become worked up over a little innocent wildlife interaction. I did not want to risk the removal of my bird feeder, the sole source of our indoor cats’ entertainment.  Anyway, one malnourished rodent couldn’t possibly have any connection with the latest Attic Incident.

A few weeks ago, I awoke about 6 a.m. to hear something scurrying around above my head – in the attic. It was Matt. For the past few mornings, he had risen for work and undressed only to be greeted by a blast of frigid water from the showerhead.
“Damn!” he cursed as another box toppled in the attic.

I debated, momentarily, whether I should continue to lie still and feign sleep.

“What are you doing?!” I shouted instead.

“Looking for the water heater!” Matt said, peering down at me from the trap door opening in the closet ceiling. I noticed he wore only a towel. “It must be behind all this crap.” 

 He disappeared. And then —

“Oh! Gross.”

The sudden sight of the decomposing body made him abandon all thought of the water heater. He climbed down the ladder.

“There’s a dead rat up there,” he confided. “I’m going to be late. I’ll have to get rid of it when I get home.”

If there’s one type of rat I don’t like, it’s a dead one. The mental picture of rotting flesh troubled me the entire day – so much so that I recruited a neighbor for moral support upon deciding to dispose of the body while Matt was at work.

The horror of this mission must have puckered my face.

“I can do it for you,” Michelle said.

She was no-nonsense. A nurse and mother of two, she represented strength and determination. Honed by 12 years of domestic warfare, she was a hardened professional. I very nearly agreed.

“No, this is something I have to do myself,” I said. “But, if you don’t mind standing next to me while I do it…”

One by one, we scaled the ladder into the attic. Blood, guts, maggots – I pictured them all as we shuffled in the direction Matt had indicated. I wore surgical gloves and carried a 40-gallon black trash bag, the kind you can’t see through once the refuge is inside.

And there it was: A small white rat on its side, eyes and mouth wide-opened. A pile of rat poison pellets, apparently scattered by the landlords, was nearby. No blood, no guts, no maggots. The creature simply looked stuffed. But it wasn’t stuffed, I learned as I attempted to wiggle a sheet of cardboard under the body; it was so light little could be left inside.
The body didn’t possess enough heft to settle firmly on the cardboard, and I watched, eyes saucer-wide, as it repeatedly rolled off.

“Oh God! Oh God!” I said.

“Use this,” Michelle said, tearing off a wad of packing paper. Gloves or not, using a mere piece of paper for such an adjustment wasn’t nearly enough protection between my trembling skin and the rat’s lifeless coat, but I took the paper from her. Sucking in a deep breath, I brought paper and cardboard together under the remains in a scooping motion. Michelle held the trash bag as I dumped the deceased in and then completed a spastic jig of disgust.

So I guess, technically, a slight possibility existed that the “mutant squirrel” feasting outside could somehow kung fu her way past our ferocious house cats, find a way into the attic and suffer the same fate as her poor brethren. At least Matt was concerned for her safety. I experienced similar qualms when I looked out the window this morning to see the “mutant squirrel” pushing seed out of the bird feeder and into the hands of five or six adorable “mutant squirrel” babies assembled below. So sweet.

All right, Matt: If it means safeguarding those adorable pink hands from certain death in the attic, I’ll relocate the bird feeder.

Hooligans

Scene of the crime

Embedded as they were in a crack of the driveway, the two round masses resembled mushrooms – the dreaded “Death Cap” kind, no less. But how did they get there, directly below the driver’s door of my car? I nudged one with the toe of my sneaker, and it rolled one rotation. Then I noticed the telltale dark specks: cinnamon. I was staring at a pair of donut holes. 

For months, someone (or several someones) has been launching food and empty soda cans in the general direction of my garbage cans. One culprit even shattered an empty glass Peach Snapple bottle at the base of one can. Circumstantial evidence indicated the donut holes were the latest missiles. 

My husband and I live on the downward slope of a major artery into our neighborhood, so we see a lot of traffic. To make matters worse, our postage stamp-sized driveway is sloped as well; We park our trio of garbage cans – trash, recycling and compost – in the far corner, near the curb, because there’s no other flat surface to accommodate them. For some passersby – including, apparently, those displeased with the variety in their Dunkin Donuts Munchkins assorted pack– the cans’ position represents an irresistible target. For others – that segment of the population that learned to drive behind the reins of a horse-drawn carriage – the cans (and the bright orange traffic cone marking their presence) inexplicably become invisible.

“BAM!”

The sudden cacophony of a crash doesn’t startle Matt and I anymore. The cats don’t even raise their heads from the couch.

“There goes another trash can,” I’ll say.

We’ve amassed a collection of side mirror covers, shell casings spent as our plastic cans suffer yet another barrage of assaults. Some days, I’ve arrived home to find the cans completely upside down in the middle of the street, their contents strewn.

A few weeks ago, we managed to identify the owner of one side mirror cover.

“My wife hit your garbage can!” An angry neighbor shouted from his car window. The admission puzzled Matt.

“Um, maybe she should drive slower and look where she’s going?”

The man did not seem to appreciate this unsolicited advice; He gunned his engine and roared down the hill.

The most recent collision, however, sounded slightly different than all the rest. 

“Ahhhhh!” I shouted, running for our front door.

Naturally, Matt was alarmed. Sore from a 30-mile hike the day before and deep under the hypnotic spell of Sunday Night Football, he was in the process of melting into the sofa cushions when I suddenly leapt from my chair.

“What’s wrong?! Where are you going?!”

I didn’t answer. There wasn’t enough time. Barefoot, hair eschew and dressed only in pajamas, I raced down the two flights of steps leading to the street. And that’s when I saw them: Four pubescent hooligans, skateboards tucked under their arms, hooting with villainous laughter and skipping away up the hill.  All three garbage cans lay upended in the street.

“I see you, you little brats!” I hollered. “I’m calling the cops!”

Then, for good measure, I picked up the orange traffic cone and placed the narrow end to my lips.

“You better run! I’m calling the cops!” I shouted.

By this time, Matt had managed to lumber down the steps.

“What happened?”

“They knocked over the garbage cans,” I said, lowering my makeshift megaphone. “Want to come with me as I track them down?”

“Do I have to?” he moaned.

I left Matt to pick up the cans and ran back up the stairs and into the house. I wriggled into a bra and slipped on a pair of pants; I likely wasn’t going to report the scallywags to any authority higher than their mothers, but I’d rather not do so with untamed breast missiles and in sheer shorts.

Turns out, I need not have hurried; the perps had rounded the corner and were strolling leisurely in the middle of the road. I pulled the Prius alongside and rolled down my window.

“Wait!” I shouted.

I expected the hooligans to scatter like cockroaches, so I was surprised when my sudden presence failed to unnerve them. Instead, a 12-year-old in a fluorescent yellow shirt turned toward me and spread his arms wide as if to say, “What the hell do you want?!”

“I saw you flip my garbage cans. Where do you live?” I demanded, adopting what I felt to be my most authoritative voice. Admittedly, this line of questioning was probably not the most cunning.

“I didn’t do it,” Fluorescent Shirt said.

“I saw you do it. I’m calling the cops.” And you’ll end up in prison on a chain gang and never get into college, I nearly added.

The kid merely shrugged and continued walking up the hill. 

“Hold still while I take your picture,” I commanded.

Despite my threats, I had no idea what to do next. So I followed – at 2 mph. The suspects, brilliant getaway artists that they were, continued walking straight down the road. 

Oh goody, I thought. Perhaps they’ll lead me straight to their homes. Mentally, I began rubbing my palms together in delicious anticipation.

“You’re stalking us,” Fluorescent Shirt said, turning back around to stare me down. He was starting to get on my nerves.

Crap. Perhaps I was, technically, stalking them. I imagined their mothers reprimanding me. In any event, a Porsche Boxster was nipping at my bumper. I pulled over, allowed the car to pass, and steered the Prius back toward my house. 

The suspects were gone! No, not gone. Feebly hiding behind a roadside log.

“I can see you, you idiot!” I shouted as I drove by. “You’re wearing a fluorescent shirt, for goodness sake!”

Red-faced and sweating, I returned home. I probably should have called the police, but I didn’t. If those kids were anything like me at that age, they would find punishment soon enough. If some crazy, wild-haired woman tracked me down and threatened legal action, I’d toss and turn the entire night, terrified my college prospects were ruined. Then I’d confess everything, through a hail of tears, to my mom.

“I’ll call the cops if they do it again,” I assured Matt. “In the mean time, they better not think they’re getting any Halloween candy from this house.”

Unbeknownst to the hooligans, they’ve managed to punish me as well. Another bang. Just now. I race down the stairs. The street is empty, the cans are all in their proper place and I’m standing in the middle of the road -- braless, shoeless and clad in snowflake pajamas.

From the archives: [Junk] collecting in Gainesville, Fla.

Note: The following was written for Professor John Marvel’s Spring 2006 in-depth reporting class at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications.

Diane & Michael Buchanan

I expected 7 a.m. to look different.

For one thing, it was too light outside.

As a longtime advocate of the weekend “sleep-in,” I hadn’t witnessed too many early Saturday mornings, and I guess I half-expected an all-encompassing darkness that would lend a sense of mystery and importance to my mission.

A car horn sounded: They had arrived.

I finished buttoning my shirt, grabbed my wallet and half-stepped into my sneakers, pressing down on the backs with my hovering heels. I shuffled out the door and toward the driveway where my mom was holding open the gate. We climbed into the backseat of the purring Lincoln Navigator and it rolled in reverse.

It was my first garage sale experience and friends Michael and Diane had offered to show me the ropes. As residents of Gainesville for more than 20 years and garage sale patrons by instinct, they were the perfect tour guides: driven, determined, well-prepared.

From her position in the passenger seat, Diane turned around and pressed a hot cup of coffee into my mom’s grateful hands. The bottle of juice and folded newspaper located on the console were for my use. Between sips of cranberry juice cocktail, I glanced over the likely targets.

My first mistake was suggesting the estate sale on page 3.

“Translation for an estate sale is ‘expensive [junk],’” Michael said as he turned the SUV down 16th Avenue.

“Some people just say ‘estate sale’ because they’re selling their old grandma’s stuff,” Mom offered. (She really was just along for the ride.)

Michael explained how middlemen often jack-up the price of merchandise at estate sales so they can make a profit. His disgust was palpable.

And simply relying on the classifieds was a no-no too.

“If people are running an ad in the paper, it usually means they think their [junk] is more special than everybody’s else’s,” Diane said. The newspaper provided a rough guide, but it was only consulted when the neon-colored cardboard signs ran out. In any event, it seemed Michael and Diane had already scoped out a target: The Duckpond.

Located in the northeast section of Gainesville, the Duckpond neighborhood hovers between downtown and the no-man’s land of the east. The area earned its name from a narrow strip of water between West and East Boulevards, a favorite hangout for waterfowl. They seemed oblivious to the splendid architecture surrounding their murky existence – the towering Victorians, sturdy rock Colonials and old Florida homes with inviting porches are all historic remnants of the 19th and early 20th century. And as the real estate is generally upper class, so was the discarded junk.

“Diane’s got this snobby attitude: She won’t shop in some parts of town,” Michael confided as we headed east on Eighth Avenue toward the Thomas Center.

But the Duckpond seemed bereft of signs that Saturday morning, and as it was nearing 8 o’clock, the pressure of uncovering that first sale weighed heavily upon Michael. In Florida, most garage sales begin at 7 a.m., and if you want to get the good stuff, you need to arrive early; As a general rule, Michael and Diane didn’t shop past 10 a.m.

Michael, perhaps in desperation, began tailing a blue Volvo. It was moving much like the Navigator, cruising at a slow speed and periodically breaking with each yard sign it passed. Our convoy passed a cardboard square with magic marker arrows promising a sale up the road, but after a mile, Michael dismissed it as a decoy.

“I’ll tell you something that’s unforgivable: leaving your signs up –“

 “Yes, that’s unforgivable,” Diane interjected.

“— leaving your signs up until the next weekend,” Michael finished.

The Volvo sensed the decoy too and turned north. We followed.

At the north end of the neighborhood, we came across our first real sale of the day.

Like a shining oasis in a desert of sleeping homes, the two rows of used furniture along that driveway served as a promising beacon. But we certainly weren’t the first to sip from the watering hole; As we pulled up to the single-story home, a station wagon loaded to the brim with odds and ends pulled away from the curb.

“Look at this guy,” Diane said. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“The man is probably a professional shopper and has certain items he searches for,” Michael said.

But Diane’s attention was soon diverted.

“Ooooooh, I want that little table,” she said, pointing at a cute wood piece with narrow legs. “Let me out! Let me out!” Our vehicle was still coasting to a stop when she leapt from the running boards.

Yet the man in the Volvo was two strides ahead of her. By the time Diane reached the driveway, he had hoisted up the table by a leg and was carrying it toward the young woman seated casually with her back to the garage door. It was gone.

As Michael bent down to inspect a box of colorful plates, Diane and my mom busied themselves by surveying the other furniture, including a set of side tables and a matching coffee table, each priced about $20. The seller said her husband had purchased the tables — against her wishes — from another garage sale less than a month ago. Ah, the circle of [junk].

In the end, Michael and my mom decided to split the plates and a box of coffee mugs amongst themselves. Michael planned to use his half for mosaic art projects. My mom would employ hers as a bargaining chip to reclaim the expensive set she had loaned to me. They paid for the dishes, and we jumped back into the Navigator.

“I wanted that table,” Diane moaned.

“You just gotta grab it, and if someone else is grabbing it, you just pull harder,” Michael said as we glided over a speed bump. My new dishwasher-safe dining set clattered in the trunk.

It was during our drive to the second stop of the day that I received the lowdown on “shabby chic.” According to Michael and Diane, the term refers to dated novelty items that still retain an aura of “coolness.” (Apparently, “shappy chic” is a garage saler’s “rosebud.”)

Just west of Main Street on Eighth Avenue, we came across a benefit sale for the restoration of a historic building. Area families had donated the wares and arranged the collection on folding tables within a fenced dirt lot. We parked.

“This would not be my neighborhood of choice,” Diane said.

“Yeah, but you get great stolen stuff,” Michael joked.

But after appraising the booty, I had trouble believing we were dealing with stolen goods; It was unlikely anyone would go to the trouble of stealing and then attempting to sell Vicki Carr’s “It Must Be Him” album on vinyl or a knock-off Louis Vuitton purse.

Empty handed, I trotted back to the car where the others were waiting for me; I had come to realize retreating to the Navigator was the official signal for Michael and Diane’s dissatisfaction with a sale or the completion of their shopping. I jumped into the backseat and we were off.

“They didn’t even have stickers on their stuff,” Diane said. “That means it’s too expensive.”

We paused briefly for three more “decoys” before locating our next stop. The first was a “Lot for Sale” sign and the second a plea for the return of a lost house key. An older man was in the process of affixing the third, an orientation sign to his sale, to the pole of a stop sign.

“Just look at this guy,” Michael said. “I can tell this isn’t going to be a good one,” “He isn’t suave, shappy or chic.”

And he obviously wasn’t ready for us. We turned onto Northwest Fifth Avenue and found someone who was.

The owners of a white, concrete blockhouse had littered their front yard with a baby stroller, a cat carrier and a ferret cage. A row of clothes on hangers swung from a low tree branch. The offerings didn’t look promising, but we filed out of the car anyway.

By the time Michael uncovered a pair of used panties near the makeshift clothesline, he was ready to go.

“Now that was an experience,” he said. “Some people just out garbage out on their yards and call it a garage sale.”

“We always run into one or two of those,” Diane said.

By then, it was getting late – 9 a.m. to be exact – and Michael steered the Navigator toward 43rd Street.

Just off the busy road, a group of Santa Fe Community College students and faculty members were conducting a combined sale to raise money for a trip to a radiography conference in Orlando. The goods were plentiful: a stack of bikes with rusty chains, a fake poinsettia plant, a typewriter, a weedwacker, rolls of wallpaper and a bird cage, sans bird. A dancing teddy bear sang Elvis tunes when his hand was squeezed.

Michael presented me with “The Official Italian Joke Book.”

“You can’t get that just anywhere,” he said.

Also among the “limited edition” items was a pair of nunchucks priced at $3 and a set of bullhorns fastened to a leather display board.

“We’re betting the yogurt maker won’t sell,” said Robin, one of the faculty members.

“Who’s going to buy a yogurt maker?”

Well, it was additive free.

But Michael was headed for the car and the rest of us trotted behind him.

In a bordering neighborhood, we came across Fili, a woman purging items before she moved to a new home located off 34th Street. She worked a craft booth at the Waldo Flea Market and among her sale items was an assortment of thread spools, most of which were bright pink.

“People come out, and that’s the color they like,” she said. She wore a fanny pack fastened around her hips – presumably the sale cash “box” — and a University of Florida Gators T-shirt.

As Fili sold a plant to a skinny youth with a handlebar mustache, I sorted through the video collection, including a VHS tape of the 1993 Bill Clinton Presidential Inauguration.

The lady beside me, a middle-aged woman named Brenda, was searching for crafts.

“I’ve probably been shopping at garage sales since I was 15,” she confided, clutching a spool of brown thread. “I never go to the mall.”

Brenda is what many garage sale patrons call a “free-styler.” She scorns the newspaper advertisements, opting instead to drive aimlessly around town and stop wherever she pleases. Other garage salers will plan a route of attack. They scan the Friday and Saturday newspaper classifieds and then map out the order in which they shop. Within this second classification is a subclass of  “professionals,” a few devoted individuals who rise at the crack of dawn every Saturday so they can beat the crowds. Often they arrive at sales even before the hosts open shop. At such times, they’re referred to as “Early Birds,” a distasteful distinction in most garage sale social circles.

John Maxwell, resident of a house off Northwest 35th Way, was not a fan of Early Birds. In fact, he maintained a careful tally of how many flocked to his garage sales before the advertised time. At the time of our arrival, there were nine new pencil marks on Maxwell’s garage door. The first was recorded at 6:47 a.m.

“I’m an accountant – I just do it by habit,” Maxwell explained, tucking his pencil into his left breast pocket.

Maxwell, a retired U.S. Military captain, said he averages about one garage sale every six to nine months; He has to in order to keep up with all the knickknacks his daughter-in-law sends him from Colorado. From the collection of display, I gathered she likes items with a western motif.

“We get it, and we get rid of it,” Maxwell said. “But she’s becoming aware of that after being married to my son for awhile.”

Empty-handed, Michael, Diane and my mom had retreated to the Navigator, and I soon joined them. It was nearing 10 o’clock, and we had one more stop to make.

At a house along 16th Avenue, we came across a mother forcing her daughter do the unthinkable: sell her beloved stuffed animals.

“I made her weed them down,” explained LuAnn Carter.

 “Fine, but you have to take me to Build-A-Bear,” said Katie, 10.

 “I don’t have to do anything – maybe if you got straight A’s…”

This delightful family was attempting to scale back before moving, and a laundry basket piled high with toys was part of the sacrifice.

“I was going to buy one and tell her, ‘I’m going to give this to my dog,’” Michael joked when we were back in the car. “Actually, she was asking 50 cents – I was going to try to talk her down to a quarter.”

The Navigator turned east on 16th Avenue to return to my stop, my house. Michael, Diane and Mom were headed for breakfast. I was headed for bed.

Winslow’s Dictionary of Universally Accepted Garage Sale Terminology

I can spot baby crap from a mile away.

I owe this remarkable superpower to my friends, Michael and Diane, although, outside of mixed company, we tend to refer to such secondhand sale offerings as “baby sh*%.” If colleges offered a PhD in “Garage Sale Sciences,” Michael and Diane would undoubtedly score honorary degrees. They’re that good.

When I was in college, Michael and Diane did me the great honor of allowing me to tag along on one of their epic Saturday scrounges, and I wrote an entire essay on the experience for my in-depth reporting class (I earned an “A”). I recently uncovered the original essay, but here’s a rundown of what I learned and have since adopted as “Winslow’s Dictionary of Universally Accepted Garage Sale Terminology:”

Antique (adjective): Reserved for items at least three decades old.

Baby Sh*% (noun): Kid-related junk the owner (usually the youngest child in the household) has outgrown and which is being peddled by overly optimistic parents desperately trying to make a few bucks so as to buy more kid-related crap.

Classifieds (noun): Once, a long time ago, printed publications known as “newspapers” existed. Sellers would pay exorbitant sums of money – generally more than they would eventually make at their forthcoming sale – to advertise in these publications.

Craigslist (proper noun): An online list from a guy named Craig through which sellers can advertise sales for free.

Drive-by (noun): The act of surveying the proffered goods from the safety of one’s vehicle before committing to grapple with parallel parking on an already crammed, one-way residential street.

Early Bird (noun): An inconsiderate jerk who either can’t read or doesn’t care to adhere to advertised sale hours and arrives five hours early on the off chance he might score a limited edition Perry Como Christmas Collection LP.

Estate Sale (noun): Overpriced, free-for-all sale of the entire contents of a home once the owner has kicked the bucket or been forcibly relocated to a nursing home. If organized by the deceased’s family, deals are possible. If organized by an Estate Sale Company (see entry for “Kofskis”), run the other way.

Freestyler (noun): One who dismisses sale advertisements and drives aimlessly around town, leaving a wake of near-accidents as he or she slams on the brakes upon detecting yet another handwritten, cardboard sign.

Garage Sale (noun): Moderately priced sale of random household crap assembled in a garage or carport.

Kofskis (proper noun): South Florida-based antique and estate sale company. Among the worst offenders when it comes to overpriced junk.

Rummage Sale (noun): When an entire community collectively compiles its crap and attempts to tempt buyers with round neon price stickers advertising “5, 10 and 25-cent” price points. Generally hosted in a church. Proceeds often fund charity projects or some youth group’s field trip to perform at the International Yodeling Competition in Fargo, North Dakota.

Shabby Chic (adjective): Used to describe a vintage item universally considered hideous when new but which has since acquired an aura of novelty and is thus desirable in modern times.

Yard Sale (noun): Low-priced sale of random household crap piled atop old comforters strewn across a front yard. NOTE: In South Florida or Seattle, not recommended during the rainy season (namely, 11 months of the calendar year)

Sellers and buyers alike: Note these definitions. Write them down or commit them to memory. Mislabeling one’s sale is a near-capital offense and will be punished accordingly.

The absolute worst offender of mislabeling is the overzealous housewife who advertises her Baby Sh*%-grade offerings as an “Estate Sale.” That is wrong on so many levels. First of all, she is diverting traffic from real estate sales, the ones in which someone has actually died and buyers like me get to creep around the vacant house rifling through filament light bulb collections and shelves of Betamax cassettes. Second, she’s responsible – during this heightened period of Super-Intense, Radioactive Global Warming, no less — for the squandering of immeasurable amounts of gasoline as we buyers conduct repeated drive-bys to determine whether her rinky dink starter home is truly the estate in question. How dare she. A patchwork quilt piled high with a kid’s stained onesies is not an estate sale.