A funny thing happened while going to a thrift store... Collection finds and how we get them...

programcomputer · 2005-01-02T09:49:00+00:00

Hello, A new thought for us all. Do you ever wonder if the things we colllect,( like vacuum's for example) are meant to be found? Or do you think that fate has a interesting way of intervening? Let me explain more... I have a very close freind that has forever BEGGED me to come and visit her. I only see her once in a blue moon and she said that she would like to see me before Christmas...if that was possible. I told her I would try to, but wasn't going to make any promises. So I decided to make a pilgrimage to Charlotte to go thrifting in some of the stores out there, to find if possible a new TOY to have for Christmas. After Marty rolled his eyes at me and said not to spend "too much", on things we really don't "need", I was off with the checquebook. I decided to go out and find something to buy on the 20th and on my way out there, I finally got the hankering to stop in my old hometown of Potterville and drop in to see Gloria, as she has requested a bijillion times to see me, and catch up. This was December 20st mind you five days before Christmas. I called her on my cell to let her know that I was on my way, I was going thrifting in Charlotte after I saw her; and that I would be there in a few. Gloria and Steve her bro. were my next door neighbors from 1979 until we moved in 1990. And Gloria used to babysit me back in the day, and so thus knew me as a smaller version of who I am now. She was sooo...very excited to see me, and during the call had asked to go "thrifting with me", and was kinda curious to what I was after.... Knowing the question wouldn't just "go away", I told her that I was looking for old vacuum cleaner's. She just laughed and said...well what else "HASN'T" changed about you in 20 years? You and your old vacuum cleaners.....(She laughed pretty hard at me) I was like well you know I can never pass up an old vac, If I could ever find one.... She laughed again then she fell very quiet and I was like uhm you there?..She just said I guess I will see you in a few then right...I was like I'll be there in five minutes. So I picked up Gloria at her house, and after being in the car for like five minutes she said...before we go to the "thrift store" I think that you might want to stop at my grandmas house? I was like...WHY? She says, I want you to see Steve and say hi to him, and I think I may have something that you are looking for...After kinda staring at her for a quick second I was like..whaddaya mean you have "Something" that I'm looking for"? She said you'll see. Gloria's grandma Vicki died two years ago, and left her house to her brother Steve who was a close freind of my brother. We got to her house, about 1/4 mile from where I wanted to go...and we went in to say hey and I was kinda glad cause I hadn't seen Steve in a coons age...and I was curious to find out what SHE supposedly had that I was looking for. I knew her grandma had a Kirby 505 as Gloria and her Grandma used to scare the hell out of me with it...chasing me and so forth, god I hated Kirby's then, it's was a psyc. thing I guess...I just hated their roar and fearsomeness. I figured that was what she "had for me"..... After going inside and seein Steve again, which I hadn't seen him since 1994, they both dissappeared out into the kitchen and after a few minutes of them kinda talkin in a muffled voice, with a few periods of muffled laughing they both re-emerged with Steve giving me some good old fashioned ribbing about my vacuum cleaner "fetish", and how "some things" never change. I looked at my watch and said "guys I hate to be a b@#ch, but I really have to get going to this place 'fore it closes. Gloria eyes me and says...just wait a minute. She bounds up the stairs like she was a kid at the "Happy Elephant Daycare" and re-emerges with a box that I immediatly realized was a Singer vacuum cleaner box. It wasn't "sealed" as the top had been opened at one point...she stopped in front of me and said: "is this what your looking for"? And dropped it in my lap..causing me to kinda gasp as she crushed my person a tid bit. I just looked up at her like someone had just handed me a check for $1,000,000.00 and said...where did you get this? A quick story was told about how her gram's kids (including Glor's mom) tried to get old Grams to replace the Kirby about 1975 at Christmas with this Singer Commercial Upright 2 speed as it said on the box... She never did. It stayed upstaris in a closet and was never used. After just kinda staring at the box for what seemed to be a eternity, she says to me well doof, open it? After a nother minute of kinda being just that, a doof : I opened the box to find the most stunning Singer vacuum that I had ever seen. The Chrome hood was visible first as I removed the top styrafoam, which gave me a view of the base unit with it's glossy black metal base,and grey bumper and a perfect still in package red and black cloth bag. The 35 ft cord was still glossy but a bit on the stiff side..but OH MY GAD.. The chrome handle and grey handgrip were perfect also... I must have looked like Ralphie opening up the Red Ryder becasue both of them stood back from me giggling just as Ralphs father did....BUT OH it was beautiful.. I just looked up and said....I can't take this...it was your grandma's. Gloria said to me....well I couldn't think of another person that I would want to have it....You the Vacuum queen for god sakes. After a few minutes of thanking them..Gloria said well...wait a second. And Steve plopped down next to me on the couch and said..."but wait, theres more"... Gloria came back from the kitchen pushing along the SAME old Kirby 505 w/ its attachment box that I used to be sacred of and said...you can have this one too. Mind you it was all orig and has the original crate box. I about cried.....guess what was under MY tree this year..And It cost me nothing. I hugged both of them like fifteen times and basically chatted like a school girl. After a few hours of remembering, we got on our way back to Gloria's to drop her off. On the way back, I told her how happy and proud I was that she wanted me to have her grandma's old vacuum cleaners. I put together that Singer the minute I walked thru the door. I told Marty to make himself a TV dinner, went Immediatly to the basement to my workbench and replaced the belt... Ironically I had on that would fit the old being horribly dry rotted and it fired up like gangbusters. I vacuumed the whole place with it...then removed the slide at the "bottom" of the bag and dumped it out onto the paper, just like the Kirby...which BTW is in better shape than the one I had, and my old one will become a parts machine...as I will be restoring Gloria's Grandma Vicki's Kirby as soon as Im done de-christmatizing my house tommorow. As I said in the beginning: Do you ever wonder if the things we collect( like vacuums for example) are meant to be found? Or do you think that fate has an interesting way of intervening? What are your situations of how you found that special something??? Anyone care to share? Pic's to come BTW.... Chad