"A Suppososedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"

On a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon my sister Mary and I headed down to Eugene to fulfill an almost life long fantasy of attending the "Antiques Roadshow" We had our soon-to-be-appraised-for-thousands-of-dollars, treasures with us, a reservation at "The Red Lion", where we were certain we would be rubbing elbows with the likes of the fabulous Keno brothers, and our 2 golden tickets, ensuring our entry into the land of surprisingly valuable antiquities. Our first stop was the hotel, where we checked in and checked out our room, not bad, not the "W" but not bad. We changed our clothes, freshened up our makeup (for the TV cameras of course) and after a few confusing GPS instructions, we found our selves at the "Lane Events Center" where we were herded into a line with a thousand other lucky ticket holders. We were finally at the Roadshow!!! The line was long, really long, but we happily shuffled our way through it joking with the folks around us about where we could get a "Fast Pass" Ha-ha! (google it) My sister is a very friendly, funny person, and a talker, and we got to know pretty much everyone in that line and the treasures they were carting around that huge convention hall. We met some really great people and had we known that this would likely be the best part of our "Roadshow" experience we would have enjoyed it even more. One line led to another and after what seemed like a very long time we were standing in front of our first appraiser. He was a big sweaty man whom we recognized from the show, and he told us, with out much interest, that the little silver pitcher we placed in front of him was, other then sentimental value, pretty much worthless. Ouch! We held our heads high and drug ourselves over to the next line and waited. We waited amongst, photo albums, baby cribs and a human sized model of the alien from "Alien." Every one had a story and because my sister is not just a good talker but a great listener too, we happily heard most of them. As we finally approached the head of this line we could tell that the mood in the hall was starting to change, we were some of the few people left and the cameras had all been shut down. Suddenly there were no more lines. and the appraisers who's own long lines had tricked down to nothing were hitting the floor to finish up with the rest of us. It felt as if they wanted to get us the hell out of there and go rest there big sweaty heads in their big sweaty hotel rooms. Another familiar faced appraiser quickly looked over 2 of our items, assigned them a moderate value and handed us off to someone else. Enter big sweaty appraiser number 2. He looked at our sweet little woven Indian baskets like they were turds and that he had been looking at turds all day long. Didn't he know we had been standing in line for 3 hours waiting for his sage expertise? He gave us the brush off and with a wave of his sweat mopping handkerchief sent us on our way, out to the parking lot to pack up our junk with the rest of the late entry losers. The trick we learned, was, the earlier the better to the roadshow. After turning down an opportunity to share a beer with some of our fellow "line mates" (OK, by then we were running away from them) we headed out to dinner with my oldest son who lives in Eugene and then back to our hotel room, that was beginning to look more like the "W" after our long day. Some of the most hilarious, absurd, crazy moments of my life I have shared with my sister, I would go any where with her and do just about anything. She makes everything more funner, even the #@!!* "Antiques Roadshow."