Shopping Trip: The Auction House, Revisited

The auction house is a wondrous place. If you have one near your area and you have some time to kill, the auction house is where it's at, let me tell you. You just never know what you're going to find there.

Like this. I saw this and a million questions ran through my mind--What is that? Where did it come from? Is it haunted? How is that played? Is that one of those Chinese Harps the assassins in Kung Fu Hustle played? How hard would it be to learn how to play one of those? And about 999,994 other questions that I won't go into here.

The auction house is also home to things you may not have seen for many years. (Or never, if you're young. What? You're young? Way to rub my face in it. Thanks.) I saw an old cigarette machine this last time. Remember cigarette machines? It used to be--back before anyone cared about things like that--pretty easy for kids like me to buy cigarettes from the drug store, but once in a while, there would be someone your mom knew in the store, shopping or something. So you couldn't get them there. Then, you'd have to go to a restaurant and buy your cigs from a machine.

Fifty cents (a nickel more than buying them at the drug store) and a pull on the lever and you would have your Marlboro reds. Easy peasy.

Listen, I'm not condoning smoking at all. Especially not by children. Those of you who have met me personally know that I am very anti-smoking. But, what can I say? It was a different time. It was my childhood. So the cigarette machine was kind of a fond/sad reminder of that.