Storage Wars.
I don’t watch television all that much, but since having gotten the bigass TV, I find myself watching more TV than I had in the past. One of the shows I admit to watching with some regularity is Storage Wars. For those unfamiliar with the show, it involves a half-dozen or so fairly dislikeable people bidding to purchase the contents of storage lockers that have been abandoned by the people who stored their stuff in the locker. The potential bidders are given five minutes to stand outside the locker and look in to examine the contents prior to bidding. No stuff-touching allowed.
Each of the regular six characters has a distinct TV persona, and the bidding, not surprisingly, is spirited and often is accompanied by stated plans by one character or another to drive up the bidding so that one of the other characters has to pay more for the locker’s contents than the bid driver-upper thinks it’s worth. This often leads to stare-downs and open hostilities that are about as believable as professional wrestling.
Still, I watch it. Apparently millions of others do as well. The show has an average viewership of 2.8 million per episode. So I ask myself, â€Yo, Jimbo. Why do you and so many others watch this rather silly and highly staged nonsense?â€
I don’t know about the rest of the 2.8 million, but for my part, I have often wondered just what the heck people store in those lockers, which are quite common in this area. Curiosity? Just plain nosiness? Not much difference between the two, I suppose, when it comes to watching someone rummaging around in someone else’s stuff.
There is also the allure of a “mystery box.â€
Remember “Let’s Make a Deal†when the contestant would be asked, “Do you want one-thousand dollars in cash or what’s behind Door Number Three?†The audience would invariably scream at the contestant, to choose Door Number Three. Hell, I would take Door Number Three.
The show has caused me to wonder about a couple things:
When a locker is opened and it is a ungodly mess filled with lots of personal stuff, such as old clothing, old shoes and other real crap, I wonder if the person who rented the locker and who was the previous owner of the stuff happens to be watching and how he/she feels about the characters picking through his/her stuff in front of 2.8 million people.
Sometimes, one or more of the lockers contains stuff that is actually worth a lot of money, which presumably would come as a surprise to the person who originally stored the stuff, otherwise why would he/she abandon the locker knowing its contents would be auctioned off?
Holy shit, Mabel! Look at the TV! Remember that old _______ [fill in the blank] we put in that storage locker? It’s worth twenty-thousand dollars! It was your idea to stop paying the rent on the damned locker!
By contrast, I have also seen episodes where some of the contents of a locker are obviously quite valuable (e.g. jewelry, three all-terrain vehicles), causing me to wonder why the locker was abandoned. Owner died? (The terms of the contract undoubtedly bind the estate.) Owner in jail? Owner on the lam?
I’m obviously over-thinking all of this.
Oh, I also have been watching Pawn Stars and American Pickers.
I think I need an intervention.
I watch all three also. You need to check out Hardcore Pawn. I only watch network TV when a football game is on I want to watch.
Comment by Dapandico — January 8, 2012 @ 8:30 pm
Hubby just discovered this on Netflix, so of course called me over for a few episodes. We put up with the “rather silly and highly staged nonsense” for the same reasons you do: the treasure hunt aspect and curiosity factors.
The characters are tiring, though, leading me to turn it off more often now.
Comment by pam — January 9, 2012 @ 9:03 am
Actually Storage Wars is a whole lot more believable then that sob story of the north about a group of clueless fools with a Gabby Hayes lookalike prospecting for Gold who experience one unexpected but increasingly predictable screwup each week which threatens dire consequences which never occur….just like the finding of any real gold in an amount which would justify the show.
As for me, I like Parking wars which brings out the brilliant thinking & understanding for the typical slum denizen who considers rules & regulations an affront to their rights.I assume they all vote Democratic.
Actually storage wars is kind neat even if staged …hope springs eternal,finding something valuable in a storage locker is more likely then winning the lottery.
Comment by dudley1 — January 9, 2012 @ 11:19 am
I’m a Storage Wars junky, and often wonder the same thing. Why on earth would someone stop paying rent on a locker with cash/jewelry/other valuable stuff in it?
OTOH, I used to work in the banking industry. At times we opened safe deposit boxes when the rent wasn’t paid and we couldn’t contact the owner. Found all sorts of interesting and at times valuable stuff that got inventoried and stored for a while, then sold. We usually never found out why…
Comment by CenTexTim — January 9, 2012 @ 12:09 pm
Probably what often happens with valuables is that the owner passes on the junk to someone who has no idea half of it might turn out to be the proverbial US Constitution under a dogs playing poker picture. And a significant chunk of the remainder could be people who can’t bear to part with any of the stuff regardless of its monetary value, so rather than sell off a little of it to afford storing the rest, they lose it all by refusing to yield to necessity. But jewelry and stuff, I can’t imagine.
Comment by nightfly — January 9, 2012 @ 5:26 pm
“I think I need an intervention.”
A&E has that, too!
Comment by Fausta — January 10, 2012 @ 3:39 pm
I used to work for a mini-storage company. About half the customers were wayyy behind in their rent, and about have of those abandoned their units eventually. My guess is that many of those people are in jail, many of them have had a relationship/marriage break up, and a few have simply lost their jobs.
It was sort of a sad and scary place to work. I managed four locations…some in good parts of town, some not so much. But they were all the same.
I finally decided to quit after giving the tour to two young thugs. They started trying to put their hands on me while we were in one of the units. It was a close call. I quit that day.
Also, at that particular facility, the resident manager often left his gun under the counter for me….just in case. Yeah…good times!
Comment by DogsDontPurr — January 14, 2012 @ 12:23 am