The Vultures

I bought a swamp-cooler last weekend. For those who don't know (and do care) a swamp-cooler is a metal box with a fan on one side and a small pump that drips water from a bottom reservoir into aluminum mesh on the remaining 3 sides, creating water-cooled / evaporation cooled air. I paid $12 bucks for it in great condition.
The auction I spent most of my Sunday milling around in was the household of a man that was alive up until a week previously, shuffling off the coil after a sudden and quick-acting illness. I do not know his name.
I do know that he was an active outdoorsman, involved in an antiques business, raised chickens, a drinker, poker player and collected Native American art and artifacts. I also know a whole lot more because I spent an entire afternoon rummaging thru and bidding on the can't-take-it-with-yous of his entire life with a whole buncha other vulture kind.

It isn't like me and all those people were hoping he would die, we just didn't seem to mind the cheap and easy feeding. It makes me feel kinda morbid, but that won't stop me from going to estate sales, cuz I can't stop people from dying. It does give me the desire not to leave a bunch of "stuff" when I go.

But I love my swamp-cooler and the fact that it's going to keep me from air-conditioning my house for another month, saving me much more than $12, so...
So long, and thanks.