Ask Someone Else's Mom

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My uncle has scored some valuable items in the storage lockers he’s bid on at auction. One locker had two jewelry boxes with what turned out to be nearly $7500 in old earrings, necklaces, and watches. He slowly sold the higher-end pieces to different jewelers. He had heard if you sell everything in one lot, you don’t make as much as doing it piece by piece.

After I saw how much you could make by taking a chance, I decided I would give it a try and went to an auction.

The locker I won the highest bid on was a small one, but it was packed. The best thing I found was a sterling silver cutlery service for 8 that got me nearly $2,000, which was double what I bid, so it worked out pretty good for me and is enough to make me think I want to try it again in a few months.

A lot of what was stashed in the locker was straight up junk. What I wasn’t expecting to find was a bunch of sex toys crammed into a boot-sized shoebox. This stuff was wild and totally out of whack with the rest of what was in the locker, all of which seemed like it belonged to an older couple.

I made a nice bit of money reselling the rest of the stuff in the locker, but I dumped the sex toys and the junk.

The whole thing got me thinking about why would you keep that kind of weird stuff, especially if you are getting up there in age? It grossed me out. --- NOT WHAT I EXPECTED

DEAR NOT WHAT I EXPECTED: Haven’t you ever heard the expression, “Old ain’t dead”?

Most likely the owners of the storage unit either forgot their sex toy stash was still around or they didn’t anticipate strangers coming across it.

Look at this as a lesson in the secrets we all shove to the back of our closets. It’s a very human thing to do and one day someone may make a few interesting discoveries about you.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My great-aunt is in her late 70s, but she is surprisingly tech-savvy. What isn’t so good is that she is a news junkie, and the news feeds she likes to follow are not always the most reliable sources. As a result, she has this image of an unsafe, totally insane world that makes her choose to stay at home except for when she really, really has to leave it. She and I used to go out for lunch or dinner at least once a week, and that has not happened in months.

I am not the only person who has noticed this. I was talking to my mom and she said she has been having a harder time getting my great-aunt out of the house too. Mom said she told her that there is too much gun violence everywhere and that she was worried she would be somewhere where a gunman would start shooting.

How do I convince her things honestly aren’t as bad as she is letting herself believe they are thanks to what she sees on-line? --- SHE BELIEVES IT ALL

DEAR SHE BELIEVES IT ALL: The more sensational the story, the more play it’s bound to get in the media. That’s nothing new. What’s changed over the past couple of decades is how much more rapidly news gets spread, too often inaccurately and incompletely.

It might help your overwhelmed great-aunt if you could strongly recommend a handful of more creditable, mainstream news outlets to follow. While no news source can be accused of being completely bias-free, there’re still some out there that attempt to do legitimate reporting and analysis.

Personally what I like to do is if clickbait temps me enough to open an article and what I read disturbs me, I’ll do a little further research by checking other sources to confirm or refute what the first article put forth.

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: My parents have never smoked, and all but two of my friends also don’t smoke. So when my in-laws, both smokers, come to visit, all I can smell is cigarette smoke on their clothes, which ends up in our guest sheets and even on our sofa.

If our kids spend the weekend with them, I smell the smoke on their clothes and have to wash everything they packed, even if they didn’t wear it.

I will say my in-laws never smoke around the kids or my husband or me. They step outside to smoke when they are around us, but as soon as they come back inside, I can smell the smoke. Maybe I just happen to be very sensitive to it because it’s never been much in my life except through my in-laws.

My in-laws are great parents and grandparents. They would be even greater if they didn’t smoke.

Am I being petty complaining about this one thing about them that drives me nuts? --- CAN’T STAND THE SMOKE SMELL

DEAR CAN’T STAND THE SMOKE SMELL: I don’t believe expressing a dislike for the smell of cigarette smoke makes you petty. You’re entitled to your feelings on the subject, and it doesn’t sound as if you’re making any demands on your in-laws regarding their smoking.

Perhaps when your children go to visit their grandparents, they could have their clothing packed in resealable plastic bags so that items they don’t wear are less likely to pick up the smoke odor.

It’s a small step that’ll perhaps make your life a little easier after visits to your in-laws.