My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

Since it is Saturday and rainy outside, I’ll take a moment and reflect on who I am. My biggest thrill in life is not catching the perfect wave – sports were never my thing. Making love is wonderful, but I’m a bit of a loner. Anyway, I’m never sure why I feel guilty afterwards. Liquor and drugs? Like Merle Haggard before me, I’ve found the bottle has let me down.

The one sure way to get my blood singing like steam in a tea kettle is to show me a full dumpster, or better yet, an attic that needs to be cleaned out. A garage sale run by old people who won’t take more than a quarter for anything. Oh, the possibilities…

Let’s take the canned salmon above as an example. When I found these old tins I felt like I had finally done something with my life. It really reinforces my sense of self worth – dare I say superiority? – when I find something someone else sees no value in. “Brilliant, Rolston! Vintage Salmon! With Five different paper labels! My God, a historical find…never do you find such selection anywhere else but the supermarket shelves…perhaps these came from…”

And from there my mind begins a construction process few outside the “addiction” would understand. My mind is going back in time and forward into the future all at once as I attempt to recreate the provenance, a dreamy past where I would understand all the technology, while simultaneously I’m fantasizing about the overeducated, compulsive, oil-wealth grade buyer who will stop at nothing to have these salmons.

The mental strain, like an overtaxed computer crashing, makes me want to take a dump. Honestly, every time I start to get to the good stuff in a pile of garbage, I feel the need to poop. I ignore it and it creates a stronger sense of urgency in my work. I’m high as a kite now, mind body and spirit are twitching in an orgy of interconnected elation. Holding my poop, dreaming my dreams, standing in treasure.

“Who would have so many brands of salmon? Perhaps a canning mogul was displaying his wares…or a label company…wait, I’ll have to check ebay, maybe some of these are prototypes! I could have unreleased graphics from a brand pulled from the market due to a salmonella scare (salmonella? Oh, the irony.) ”

This is where I begin to set my price. $20 a can. Too much? Not if the Japanese catch wind. I hear the best tuna is always shipped there. Vintage Levi’s too. Pinwheel Nike stuff. It’s probably the same for salmon. Right? Stupid Americans won’t pay as much. They don’t get it. So if the Pacific Rim is tuning in, maybe $40 bucks a can. Times 5 cans? What’s that? 200 bucks?

Now I’m really soaring. Now I have to defend my claim from jumpers. Put my catch in a box and run to my truck. Get in and lock the doors. Once I’m away from my strike, I begin the victory dance. I stop and buy myself lunch. And a new CD. Why not? I just won the lottery! A two hundred dollar windfall!

My body has been physically trembling for the past forty five minutes, and now that I’m home I can relax. Like a millionaire rolling in a bed of hundred dollar bills, I take my sweet time relishing my salmon cans in my hands. I take a closer look, inspecting for damage that may reduce resale value. Any tears in the label? Foxing? Rust? Or perhaps there is a misprint, which will add value. I work on dating the item. Is there a zip code? The USPS didn’t inaugurate that system until 1963. The fonts, the screening process, the color schemes all evoke an era and help to date the antiquity in question.

Sound like fun? Maybe you wouldn’t understand, but it’s like having sex with someone you trust who is smeared in chocolate and shouting your name. I should stop there. Leave a rosy image in your head. But I’d be lying to you. There’s an ugly side to this trip. It’s called the crash.

Once a collector’s friend, it stabs me in my back. Ebay turns up a dreaded “0″ in search results, even within eBay stores. Denial sets in. Not unusual, but not very pretty to see either.

“eBay caters to too pedestrian a crowd” I tell myself. “They wouldn’t understand the value.” Who do I know in Japan that has their pulse on the underground antique food market? No one. I’m cut off.

Teardrops of self-loathing trickle down my cheek and catch in my beard hairs as I realize the money I spent on lunch and that old Merle Haggard disc was not backed up by the assumed value of my canned salmon. God I hate myself. And the marketplace as well. Where are the visionaries? Where are my people? No one understands me! I spent over an hour in garbage to rescue these treasures!

Perhaps they’ve never been offered on eBay…maybe I have a truly rare one of a kind…oh, I can’t do this to myself. It hurts too much.

I’ll take my Collectibles – Food – Vintage tins – Canned Salmon down to my garage and store them with the other jewels. Someday I’ll be rewarded for my labor. I know I will.