The last year that I was in the Army I was stationed at FT Stewart, GA. The four of us lived in an old double wide trailer that was in need of repair. Luckily the landlord would let me fix things and then take the cost out of the rent.

The place had an automatic dishwasher that did not work. My wife at that time (now X) really wanted a working dishwasher. I kept asking around about where I could find one cheap. I was told to check on the military surplus auction.

I did just that and found that there was an auction that friday and they had a dishwasher on their list of items. I immediately made arrangements to take that friday off. Had no trouble getting that taken care of.

The day before the scheduled auction our car died. It was either go to the auction or fix the car. My X and I went to the auction. We had to ride our bikes. The first couple of miles was down sandy dirt roads. FT Stewart is only fifty miles from Savannah, GA. That’s right on the beach. What most people don’t know about the state of Georgia is that it is mostly beach sand. Ever try to ride a bike on dry beach sand. That was why we were late.

Not too late. We only missed a few items. My X was well known for going over budget and keeping us in debt. I made sure she knew what our limit was that day. We could not go over seventy dollars. Turns out I didn’t need to worry. When the lot number for the dishwasher came up for bid, they said the starting bid was going to be twelve dollars and I expected to have competition. I was used to auctions since I had gone to several with my mother. No one bid. We had the only bid. I was stunned when we won.

We had only been there about twenty minutes. So I looked over the rest of the list and we didn’t see anything else that we wanted to bid on. We went and paid for our lot and got a pick up ticked and a map to find our dishwasher. We followed the map and found ourselves out in the large back lot. Everything was well organized and we soon found our lot. Now we had a problem. It was not one dishwasher. It was twelve of them.

Now a new problem. We had until 5pm sunday to pick them up. I also had a car to fix. It was almost noon, so we left and got a bite to eat while we figured this out. Fortunately we passed a truck rental place on our way to get a burger. After eating we went and rented a truck for just twenty dollars a day. Went back and they loaded our truck with a forklift.

My X was happy that she didn’t have to ride he bike anymore that day. I took her and the dishwashers home and unloaded them. The next morning I returned the truck and got my part for the car. I had the car fixed by the time the sun went down.

After church on sunday I checked out those dishwashers and I picked out the best looking one and brought into the kitchen. I spent the rest of the afternoon replacing the dishwasher. We were all very pleased that it worked.

Now, what was I to do with the other eleven?

I took my receipt for the dishwasher and the truck rental to my landlord and told him about installing it. This excited him and not only did he pay me the thirty two dollars, but also gave me another twenty for one of the other washers. He picked it up that week and installed it in his own home. It also worked with no problem.

I’m now down to ten. They sat out in the yard under a tarp for about two weeks. There was a man that ran a swap shop just outside of town and he had some stuff we wanted to get for our boys for Christmas. I told him about the dishwashers. Normally he kept a straight face. When I told him that I installed one and my landlord put in another and they both worked, he got very interested.

He came and picked them up the next day and once he got them to his place, he had me help him take one in and hook it up. He had a place for it, but had never purchased one. He was washing dished in it when I went back home.

We got a bunk bed, shelves, waterbed and other stuff out of that trade. I saw him a few weeks later and he had sold three more washers and all of them also worked.