Be not despondent and abandon your mortification.  For my goal, which I pray that I accomplish each week, is to make you laugh or just smile a thoughtful smile, even when I am ranting and being mean.  Hence, I beg you to judge me not.  For I cannot help that stupidity vexes me to be moved to such eloquent tirades.  Neither can I find a cure for the intellectual vertigo I suffer when exposed to blathering ignorance, nor can I alter my DNA to alleviate the allergic reactions I have when I come into contact with assholes.  For day by day, the aforementioned cause yet another of my synapses to misfire, moving me closer to that sweet, sweet conclusion called insanity.

Part One: Lunch

Despite what some may believe, my father, my brother, and I are human beings.  Yes.  Shocking as it may seem, even auctioneers are flesh and blood.  Now, hold it.  Stop your gasps of surprise.  I know… You thought we were gods incarnate.  You pegged us for mystical beings sent down from Olympus to enchant and open your wallets with hypnotic warblings and bid calling.  For like the hapless sailors of Ancient Greece righting their rudders to seek out the Syrens, so too do your hands thrust themselves into the air, bidding numbers held tightly, whenever one of us climbs the podium and showers you with our gloriously rhythmic auctioneers’ chant.

I can understand how some could make this mistake.  This, of course, explains the surprise–Nay!  The sheer horror–that some people have when they walk into the auction gallery between Noon and 1PM and see us stuffing our faces with a bowl of Ramen Noodles, leftover Chinese food, or Saltines.  I can understand how some, who thought us to be divinity among mortality, could be disillusioned to the point of wrath or sarcasm when they–without warning or preparation–walk in upon my family and me and see us eating lunch:

“Oh, the calamity!  Oh, the grotesque nature of it all!  To think that the Savo Auctioneers need to eat three times a day!  How could this be?  Why is it that they, the Savo Auctioneers, think that they have a right to sit upon their asses at midday and eat a meal just like everybody else in America?  There!  There!  Do you see them?  The Savo Auctioneers eating lunch!  Gaze upon the wonderment!  Look upon the atrocity!  Witness the perversion!  The end is nigh, for the Savo Auctioneers are eating lunch, and now we will all be swallowed by the darkness as the fabric of the universe tears and all existence falls in upon itself!”

Part Two: Gnomes

My conscience is heavy and I feel the need for confession.  For we, the Savo Auctioneers, have not only deceived you, the public, and our families, but we have committed a sin against the dignity granted by God to all his creatures.  And there is no greater sin against God and nature than slavery.  We are guilty of such an atrocity, for we have enslaved one of the most beloved figures of mythical folklore: the gnome.

Those of you who know us have heard us tell tales of long days on the road, of arduous estate pick-ups, of dragging furniture and collectibles through all kinds of adverse architecture, of enduring dirt, mold, and grime, and of spending hour upon hour unloading our trailers so that we may set up our auction sales.  In other words, we have told you how hard we work.

All this was true for the first two years of our operations.  We labored until our backs were knotted, our knees were aching, and our hands and feet were calloused.  All this was true until the day we found the gnomes.

There they were, dozens upon dozens of gnomes lounging about in the front yard of an abandoned home to which we had been granted access by a realtor.  I will not abhor you with the brutal details of how I made these little bearded fellows submit to my will, but ever since then I and my family haven’t lifted a finger in either removing items from an estate or in bringing said items into the gallery.  And after a few weeks of shock therapy, these gibberish spouting servants learned the finer points of setting up an auction. 

The gnomes did rise up about a year after their enslavement, but Carlo, who is adept in fencing, quickly–and with very few casualties–suppressed their rebellion.  Now, fully engrossed by Stockholm Syndrome, the gnomes are completely loyal and subservient to us.

Part Three: the Bloody Weather

And so the inevitibility makes me nauseous.  For the moment comes and comes again as though I am trapped in a Temporal Causality Loop.  Just as I settle down with my Saltines and Ramen Noodles, someone enters the gallery and tells me things must be going well for me to be able to eat lunch and sit on my ass.  I am asked if this (the auction business) is all I do.  I say yes, and then explain how easy it has become because of my mindless army of auction gnomes.

Not knowing how to respond, this lunch-hater then brings up the weather and explains it to me as if I have no idea that it’s nice, or raining, or snowing, or windy, or that billions of locusts are eating the cattle.  And, of course, if the weather is fine, we thank God for such a glorious day, but if the weather is malicious, we curse George Bush and his evil weather machine, wondering where Austin Powers is when you need him.

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