Practicing My Negotiation Face

I'm sale-ing away,

Out of the garage into the yard you see,

'Cause I've got to be free,

Free of all this crap that I'm sell-elling,

my yard, I'm the captain, all aboard my yard,

You can find lots of junk here that I know for sure,

And I'll try, Oh man I'll try, to sell it all...

Things That Go Bump in the Business

Things that Go Bump in the Business

By Allison P. Slep

Last May my husband and I, and our two daughters, moved into a house in Midland, Michigan. The house was built in the early nineteen-fifties and has some peculiar features. There are steel storm shutters on all of the windows that roll down manually by a rope and pulley and also by pushing a button that closes and opens them electronically. It’s the sort of thing you might see at a business in Detroit or any other high crime area, not in a suburban neighborhood. The bedroom my husband and I share has a gun safe built into the wall. I imagine it once had a large oil painting with a gold painted, carved wooden frame hung on the wall to conceal it. The basement has the most interesting feature, a full bar. I’m not talking about a bar that someone may add to their home for the purpose of entertaining a few guests; this bar is the real deal. It was built around the same time that the house was built and has everything a bar would need for the purpose of conducting business. There is a bar counter, working sinks to wash bar glasses in just underneath it, shelves to house all types of liquor, a tap for draft beer, and a special refrigerator to keep the kegs in. One wall has a classroom sized old chalk board attached to it and there is room for tables and chairs. With all of these out-of-the-ordinary things added together, it seems as though there may have been a speakeasy operation going on or possibly gambling. I can only speculate about what once went on in my home.