Robin paid in cash. Wads of bills and pocket change. All told: $1,969.47. I carried it to the bank – surreptitiously looking around me as I walked – and dumped it on an unsuspecting teller as if it was contraband. Which in a way, is what it was.

I’m talking about the proceeds from our estate sale. I suppose I could be penurious and ask, Is that all we’re worth? But to tell the truth, the money really does seem like contraband. When we think of all the Craig’s List ads (and phone calls, and deliveries), and all the trips to donation centers that we would’ve had to endure, the service that Robin provided wudda been a bargain if she had simply emptied our apartment for free.

(At Robin’s insistence, we left food on the shelves – open jars of peanut butter! – toiletries in the bathroom, even socks in drawers. At estate sales, people actually buy half-full bottles of shampoo. We removed what little we intended to store, and left everything else in situ.)

So here we are. Three days from departure. Homeless, with practically nothing to call our own. Will we miss our friends, our families, our favorite pub up the street? Yes! But will we miss all that stuff on the shelves and in the drawers? Are you kidding? This is freedom!

An unsolicited endorsement: her name is Robin Caton. She runs foundstuff.net. She’s licensed, bonded, and insured in Oregon, Washington, and California. She’s a Certified Appraiser and brimming with great stories.

And she pays in cash.