Thursday, January 13, 2005

I am a dope, and my Antiques Roadshow fantasies are in tatters Ok, so maybe I can blame this on the pregnancy. But I think not, because once a year or so, I have an experience of extreme naivete. Or gullibility. Or over-optimism. Call it what you will. Usually, I end up getting ripped off, like the guy who cornered me and got $40 (maybe even more--I have blocked out the embarassing details) out of me by telling me a sad story about how he was an AIDs patient, and he was bleeding out, and he needed to get to the clinic but his mother couldn't come because she was at work, and he needed cab fare and money for his prescription "Look, this is the receipt--it's $25" and so on. Yeah. Sucka. I gave it to him. It wouldn't have been so bad, except he gave me a phone number to call to reach his mother who would pay me "right back" for being such a kind soul. I don't need to tell you (because you're not a f'in Pollyanna like me) that that phone number--um nope. Didn't work. Or, more to the point, it did work, but not to reach anyone remotely connected to the con artist on LaBrea. And the address he gave me where he lived, just nearby? Nope, that didn't exist at all. Today's example isn't quite so embarassing, except for the flights of fancy in which I indulged after it happened. So, the H and I have bought this new house. It's bigger than our old one, and as a result, we need furniture, and stuff for the walls, and all manner of things that are truly necessary so the house functions before we spend money on furniture and stuff for the walls. But a couple of months ago I was out with my mom, and we stopped in an antique store, and among other things, they had this set of shabbily-framed sketches, eight in all; they looked like costume designs. The house we bought was supposedly built for a silent film star in the 20s, and so the idea of little (they're small--5x8 inch?) costume sketches prettily framed somewhere held this appropriate appeal to me...but I didn't buy them. Not where I needed to spend money, when there's paint to be bought and shelves to be built, and electrical work to be done. But I kept thinking about them. I woke up in a bad, bad mood this morning; it's been happening a lot lately, and I think it has to do with being pregnant, and being freaked about becoming a mom to two instead of one, and having massive anxiety about how much of this burden (as welcome as it is) will fall on me, rather than the H. I had also had a dream wherein the H was in a vile mood (it happens; he's a writer; if you know any, you know that 'nuff said) and though he wasn't even particularly mean to me in his bad mood, he made a face at me (in my dream, that is) and I ran out of our house (which wasn't our house, but in the dream it was) and into my car, where I sat, alone, in the passenger seat, not going anywhere. (Yes, my new shrink had a field day with this one today. But I digress....) So post-bad mood, post-therapy, I found myself (interestingly, back on LaBrea, apparently the locus of my gullible, naive behaviors) driving right past that antique shop. It's not very expensive, unlike a lot of antique places in L.A., and I thought, what the hell, if there's a parking place in front, I'll stop, and just see if those sketches (which I have thought of EVERY DAY since I saw them) are still there...There were three parking spaces. This does not happen. I stopped. The spot on the wall, in the back, near the stairs, where they'd been hanging was now occupied with some etchings of New Orleans. Oh well. But then the owner? Salesperson? came out to greet me, and I saw them stacked on a little table. The price seemed to have been reduced, but maybe I was remembering incorrectly. "I saw these a couple of months ago, and I keep thinking about them. I figure that means I'm supposed to buy them." Well, there's a fish on the line if ever you've seen one. He immediately quoted a price 30 percent off the new (?) price--"and if you pay cash, no tax." I made him wait for a few minutes, but I knew I had the cash in my wallet...."What do you think they are?" "Prints", he said. "They look like costume sketches to me," I replied. "Maybe." He smiled. I couldn't get the money out fast enough. When I came home, I took one out and looked at it. I could just make out a signature, so I googled the name. Turns out, they were the work of a relatively famous English costume and set designer. A little more research showed that a similar sketch was housed in a museum that's part of Britain's National Trust. Oh my. I had made a find! An honest to goodness, Roadshow-TV appearance-worthy find. The H would be so impressed. But one thing remained. To removed the sketch from the frame to see what was really on the paper. I couldn't get the frame apart fast enough. That paper's glossy. I don't even think these are prints; I think they were illustrations removed from a book. And piff, poof, my fantasies of antique savvy evaporated, and I just felt like a stooge. But I still think they'll look cool in the house. 8:48:30 PM     comment [] trackback []