Buying Used (Misc)

Do you ever hold something used in your hands and you kind of wonder "How did this end up here?" I do that all the time.

Some things I can understand, like I my mom has a spinning wheel that's missing a part, and I've got a music box with a stripped plastic gear. They're both things that are broken, but not quite broken enough to be thrown in the garbage.

Then there are things like a Nintendo Wii 6 months after the release, when people were still going nuts and they were flying off the shelves. Why would someone give up a brand new gaming system only 6 months later? Did they need the money? Did an angry girlfriend take it, sell it, and then break up with the guy? The same for almost-new videogames.

Then there are the really strange things, like tools, or this music box here. They really make me wonder who owned them previously, and why they were given up. Oddly enough, what primarily comes to mind is "Did someone's grandma die and they cleaned out their living room?" Do I own something that belonged to dead person, or something that grandma wanted to pass on to her daughter? What's the story? How old is this thing? Is it valuable? Did there used to be a department store, 30 years ago, that had shelves of these things?

Objects make a good launching-point for a story, sometimes.