Object lesson: Why I bought these random wooden blobs

What am I?

This is the story of what happens when I find out there's going to be an estate sale in my very favorite midcentury neighborhood. When I pull up to the house on the day of the sale and see that it's not only my favorite 'hood but one of those adorable atomic ranches that hasn't been meddled with by owners who just want to "modernize a little." When I know in my bones that this is going to be a fantastic sale and I am going to make some serious scores. YES.

How quickly ecstatic anticipation turns to disappointment. Maybe all the good stuff has been sold or none of it was really that good in the first place. What's left might be okay but it's the first day of the sale so it's wicked overpriced. I circle the rooms again and again, methodically turning over objects for their marks, rifling through kitchen cupboards, poking through closets one more time, scanning the spines on the bookshelves yet again, till finally I settle on buying two sort-of-interesting lumps of wood because maybe they are some midcentury sculptural objet but more likely they came from somebody's iguana tank.

The hissing sound you hear is one of deflated expectations.

Lesson learned: Don't feel obligated to buy stuff just because in the reality you conjured based on the estate sale ad, the stuff was awesome. The stuff isn't awesome, unless you happen to own a pet shop.