Storage Wars

I stayed in my office after I finished teaching for five hours and got a lot done.  All administrative tasks.  Correspondence.  I came home and Carly had made spaghetti and I had dinner and ate too much.  I felt blah and just sat on the couch for a half hour watching the new episode of "Storage Wars".

How it works is people bid on storage units for which the rent has not been paid.  The facility will break the lock and the bidders have five minutes to look inside without touching or opening anything and then they bid.  Sometimes they lose money and sometimes they start opening boxes and discover a fortune in coins, football cards, you name it.  Tonight the guy had Vera Wang shoes he thought were worth $200 but I got news for him, those are several seasons old and no longer in style but not old enough to be vintage.

I like looking at weird stuff and wondering who leaves all these lockers?  I would empty it somewhere before losing the stuff.  How many people die or get sent to prison to leave their storage unrenewed?

I don't know.  But there is one bidder on there named Barry who is evidently somewhat wealthy and older and likes to collect things.  A couple of the bidders have second-hand stores and are providing for their families.  This guy just discards everything and tosses it around like it's junk because he is looking for a Strato Caster Guitar or carved jade Buddhas.

What bothers me is how he throws stuff away because he doesn't want it.  Can't he donate it to people who need it?  Today, my students in my seminar class read an essay about an immigrant from Sudan named Siba who was seeking political asylum in the US after being tortured as a rebel suspect.  He was not a rebel, but he did want better conditions for his country.

I got home late and the girls had dinner earlier with their dad who delivers appliances and televisions for Best Buy.  Best Buy has a pretty good discount for employees but they have just capped the discount at 50%.  For some accessories, employees used to buy them for cost plus 5%.  You might cry over the mark up in say, headphones and ear buds for iPods.  Anyhow, he delivered 14 TVs to a man building a mansion who wants to watch cable in every room including the bathroom.  Someone is watching Cribs.  David told the girls the guy had a rug from an art gallery in NY and the price tag was still on it for $20,000.

I don't know what to think of that.  I appreciate nice things.  If I ever have a best selling book, I want a swanky Prada purse and wallet.  But I think I like some of the $500 rugs at Lowe's and I could put $19,500 towards some other purpose.  I am wondering how many pioneers that would support for how long.  How many Kingdom Halls that would build in Sudan.  My mother had a stack of bills from QVC last time we were there, August of 2009, and of course the girls picked them up and looked at the total, and it was about $2500 for the last six months.  I could not serve my daughter a bologna sandwich with that kind of jewelry bill.  If you say anything to my mother, she will tell you Jesus appreciated nice things and his garments were so costly the guards cast lots over them.

I never saw the point of telling her that Jesus did not have a house with a walk-in closet filled with more such garments and he could also turn water into wine and one fish into many, so he would probably not give us a bologna sandwich either.

The guy in the essay, Siba, from Sudan, part of the process he went through in seeking asylum was the doctor had to examine him and document his scars so they knew he wasn't making up the torture part just to get a free ride to the land of the free.  He had to measure the depth and width and degree of the scars.  Siba described how his torturers placed the glass and tightened the ropes so you couldn't bleed to death and die, but every few hours the cuts were a little deeper, at the back of the knees so you couldn't walk, the bend of the back, between the shoulder blades.

The scars were ridged with more scars, over and over.

He was happy working as a sandwich delivery boy in NY.  Probably not bologna.  I don't know what he would think of a $20,000 rug.  I don't know why Barry can throw nice furniture away simply because he doesn't need it.  Doesn't he know someone else does, or they are so far beneath his notice he doesn't care?  Does Siba get any tips?  David did not for the 14 televisions.

Sometimes the big things that are wrong are so hard to bear I have to ignore them to get by.  Sometimes all the little things accumulate until I am depressed.  Sometimes I wonder how Jehovah can handle all these burdens I throw on him, along with everyone else's.  One of my students sent an email today that says when God answers your prayers, you have faith in his abilities.  When he doesn't answer them, He has faith in yours.  Sounds like something worldly people would say, and I know Jehovah knows me better than I know myself, but any ability I have comes from Him.  So today I pray to be fortified despite the insensitivity that surrounds me.