Bargains So Good It’s Like Stealing

One of the hundreds of items for sale at Saturday morning’s police auction was a gorilla costume.

“I will bid on this,” said a young man in a red ballcap.

He was among maybe 150 people milling about on a concrete floor beneath fluorescent lights in a windowless North Side warehouse. They were previewing unclaimed or confiscated property before the start of the sale. And the guy in the red cap clearly was amused by the prospect of owning a gorilla suit acquired at a police auction.

“Make a good story,” he said.

The guy standing with him said something in Russian. Judging from the speaker’s expression, it wasn’t “Yes, that’s right - let’s spend money on a gorilla suit so you will have an amusing anecdote to tell.”

In a way, the event was a snapshot of Spokane. It combined the love of bargains with evidence that a lot of stuff gets swiped around here.

There were fax machines, cell phones, Def Leppard tapes, cameras, competition-quality throwing darts, TVs, scented candles, microwave ovens, a guitar, a chainsaw, binoculars, ski goggles, an air freshener, bolt cutters, fishing reels, a crossbow and bottles of cologne.

Can you imagine?

“What’s that fragrance you’re wearing?”

“Oh, just a little something I picked up at the police auction.”

But the featured attraction had to be the dozens and dozens of bicycles.

A guy in a University of Michigan “National Champions” cap told the man next him that, at a previous auction, he had paid $300 for a bike exactly like one he’d seen advertised for $5,000. “It was a steal,” he said with a sly smile.

Another man consulted a printed list of items to be auctioned and looked for all the world like someone handicapping a horse race. “The scales and fans,” he said softly.

Well before the sale started, several bidders positioned themselves in folding chairs right in front of the auctioneer’s stand.

The sale began promptly at 9 a.m. Three red plastic gasoline jugs went for $2.

A wheelchair sold for $10. A couple of bags of topsoil went for $5.

Then the auctioneer held up a shovel. “Mother’s Day is coming up,” he said.

It sold for $10.

When he got to a bag of beads, he noted that there had been more beads before the preview session. “I think somebody’s got some of them in his pocket,” he said.

Just think of that. Someone stealing at a police auction.

There ought to be a law.

A glance over at the property tables offered some small reassurance. The gorilla suit was still there.

, DataTimes