Auction pick up day

So, Sunday night, after finding out that we won a stainless steel sink from an online auction, at about 10 PM we grab some clothes, a toothbrush, the dogs and leave a full bowl of food for the cat. The pick up time is Monday from 10 am to 4 pm. The plan is to borrow dad’s truck, go pick up the sink and then stash it in the garage at mom and dad’s until we can pick it up with our trailer to bring back to the farm. The trip out was fairly uneventful because it was late, no snow and not many folks on the road.

A side note…one trip to the farm in the middle of the night we were joking about driving through one of the weigh stations. As we approached I looked over and saw a car parked with its headlights on in the weigh station off ramp and in front of those headlights a VERY naked man walking along the shoulder. No socks, no shoes, no hat…nothing. I had a very nice view of his butt. Now we look for him every time we drive by.

So, back to Detroit, we made it in good time and slept for a few hours before getting up for breakfast with mom. She made us the most amazing whole wheat buttermilk pancakes! YUM! It was snowing and so we cleared off the truck. We decided that going across Eight Mile road to Schaeffer was the best route. No problem getting there and finding the place. There were several large trucks in the alley loading up equipment and several guys walking around. I had my money and my email confirmation and walked in looking for someone to offer direction. Most of the people just looked at us, didn’t say anything and so we just wandered around. Finally, we entered a room with a table full of people, smoking and making some deals, and when they got up to leave they said we should go through the other set of doors for the auction folks. We entered the office where two people were shuffling through piles of paper. They said “hi” and then looked at us. I finally asked if they were the ones who we should pay. I offered up my email confirmation and she matched it to their paperwork. She seemed surprised when I offered cash for payment. So, we paid and got our two copies stamped “paid” and she said just go out to the warehouse and give one copy to the guys there to pull our item.

Well, we went back to the warehouse and figured out that no one was working that we could find so we wandered around looking for the sink. After about five minutes of looking we were approached by a guy who asked if we were looking for something. I gave him my paid receipt and he had the “guys” pull it from the upstairs.

It took a while and as we waited we met Jeff. He asked if we were starting a restaurant, as we stood there in our Carhartt overalls and muck books. We told him that we were starting a farm. He asked what we bought and Jody told him it really wasn’t what we wanted. That we got a small sink but we wanted a triple sink. He said they should have one that we could buy and he yelled over to another guy asking if he had a triple sink for us, that we were “poor, just farmers.” He told us to go upstairs to the second rom on the right and check it out. So we did and it was perfect! I went back down and Jody went to find the restroom. While I waited, Jeff came over and asked why we had a farm called “Big Head Farm” and I started to tell the story. He asked how many acres we have and then he said that we have to grow Jewish Mallow (which I looked up to be Mulukhiyya in Egyptian cuisine) and also garbanzos. He said he’d get us the seed, one kilo, and we’d grow it and he’d help us sell it and we’d all make money. Woohoo! Turns out Jeff grew up on a farm in Lebanon and he goes back there often. He also said “we got you that sink.” Turns out Jody did some dealing while I was outside and he picked up the triple sink for only $400! Again I say, woohoo!!!!

So I got Jeff’s phone number, we got two sinks and quite a story to tell! I love auctions!!!

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