
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 25, 1993                   TAG: 9309180304
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

YARD SALE TIME AT BENNIE'S

I wasn't shocked when I heard about the Internal Revenue Service not being able to keep its own books.

The agency listed a $753 video display terminal - that's VDT to those of us who are up and running in computer technology - as having an inventory value of $5.6 million.

How can honest, God-fearing Americans be shocked by something like that? Hey, this is a country in which the federal government pays 800 bucks for a clawhammer, which is sometimes without a claw.

(I will now allow myself to gloat a little about the IRS, which is always very sure of what taxpayers owe. My grandmother taught me that gloating is trashy, but my grandmother never knew the IRS the way I do.)

Moving ahead here, and admitting that I have never been much at checkbook-balancing or asset-inventory, I began a careful accounting of various capital items around the house.

There is the edging tool I bought some years ago when I seriously lusted after a really great lawn. It is not a power tool by any means. That is to say that one of those guys in those exercise machine commercials might have the biceps to use this thing.

I paid $29.50 for it. I'm saying it's worth $3.50. Come get it. If you impress me as being a good person, I'll knock a buck off. I'll give it to you if you promise to mention my name kindly the next time you are around the publisher of this newspaper. You know. Something simple, like: ``Boy, when they made old Beagle, they threw away the mold.''

I also found some huge bolts and nuts that would appear to have been made to hold up the roof of the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel. I'll have to ask the Office of Procurement why we bought these beauties, but I'll let them go for 75 cents. (I know. I know. The IRS would have said they were worth $759. But we don't want to be vindictive, do we?)

I also have a very fine collection of those skinny little screws with the wing nuts on the end. These, as you many or may not know, never work right when you try to put up towel racks in the bathroom.

These are free, but there's a value-subtracted tax of $35. I just made that up. There's no such thing as a value-subtracted tax. Not yet anyway.

There also is a 30-year old electric floor buffer. As we know, it's pretty hard to use a floor buffer on carpet, and most hardwood floors are done with the no-wax polyurethane finishes, and I understand it's not fashionable to be seen buffing them.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting piece of Americana, and it can also be used for scrubbing kitchen floors. It has these brushes, see, and you unsnap the lambswool buffing pads, and this sucker will throw soap and filth all over your kitchen walls.

I paid $49.50 for it. It's yours for $30.50. Listen, this thing has antique value, and it's a lot of fun using it as a floor scrubber.

Of course, this is merely the start of my inventory. There's all kind of good stuff down there in the basement yet, pal - including a slightly used seat for a stationary bicycle.

When I get to the foot-bath machine that doesn't work anymore, you'll be first to know.

by CNB