Misadventures

The estate sale at my mom's house was on Mothers' Day weekend. It went poorly. On Friday, there was a small (about 50 people) riot of customers hastily going through the sale items. Some were sold. Not many. Saturday was slower, and we got a call from the professionals handling the estate sale, saying that the sale was going so poorly that we were going to have to go into overtime, pay some more, and try to sell more on Sunday. OK, that was fine; we just needed to get the stuff gone. We went to church Sunday morning as usual, confident that the estate sale was in good hands. It was a beautiful day, a great sermon, and we enjoyed sitting with some friends. After church, we checked the messages, and the estate sale guy had left a frantic message saying to get over there ASAP. So we drove to the house ASAP. Apparently, one of the neighbors had thought the house was being robbed (I'll assume they didn't see all the big signs that said, ESTATE SALE), so they called the police. 8 squad cars swarmed the house, and a customer-some guy walking out with a box of knick-knacks and old magazines-was frisked and patted down. Like I said, it went poorly.
I suppose the reason the police reacted with such force and promptness may be because of a story that was on the news recently where some yahoo was house sitting for a neighbor who was out of town, and held an "estate sale" at the neighbor's house, selling his things! That sure is a shame, but I suppose it is a good way of getting quick cash with no investment. I can't wait for the next time some one asks ME to house sit!