Details...

Last week I scoped out a sale at an estate company.  Two large showrooms were filled wall to wall with belongings pulled from a variety of homes and placed in no particular order in the skinny, squirrely walking aisles crafted between stacked shelves and furnishings. I selected several items that I thought were unique and ready to find another home. One of those was a set of vintage kitchen glasses. At the check-out, two employees offered to wrap the glasses for transport and rolled each of eight glasses across the stack of newspapers next to register.

This morning, I had a chance to return to the items I bought that day.  As soon as I unrolled the first glass, a sad, familiar image became clear on the newspaper wrapping.  A glance at the date across the top confirmed the newspaper’s print date of September 12, 2001.

At work, at home, in hobbies, and even when clearing out the final items in an old home - it is all in the details.  The details in this case - I imagine went just like this - the estate company was paid to clear a house. The team threw everything in boxes.
Then in trucks.
Then to the warehouse.
While unloading items across the tables and shelves to be put out for sale, a stack of newspapers that were so untouched they looked like last week’s headlines were tossed to the wrapping area next to the register. 

Had anyone thought to look a little more closely, they would have discovered that not only had they collected vases and frames and lamps with antique appeal,  they had also acquired a preserved moment of history itself that someone carefully put aside 15 years ago.  Now, that forethought is a wrinkled mass.

It’s always all in the details.