I’m preparing for a worst case scenario (parents refuse to downsize, refuse to move to LTC, keep kicking the can down the road because everything is fine...). If they disregard my advice to downsize now that they’re cognizant all I can do is let them fail and use an emergency like a fall or an accident to talk to the ER doctor, convince him they're not safe at home and move them to LTC or AL, somewhere they’re supervised at.

At least 2 fully furnished houses would have to go, these are large, old, but renovated houses: one is 2,700 square feet and the other 1,600, both measurements without counting the front garden and backyard. Completely furnished with stuff from several generations, most of it regular stuff not worth much.

I have zero experience dealing with estate sales and to me it looks daunting: How do I make sure potential buyers don’t low-ball me? Should I ask several local realtors first? How do I choose one to trust? Do I need a realtor? I live on another state and would want to expedite this but I just don’t know if waiting for a better offer would make sense.

How much time did you need to close the sale?

nothing dangerous, just regular aging stuff I'm not gonna get into.

My parents own 3 fully furnished houses in 2 different cities in the south. The oldest, biggest one should be sold because it is simply too big and too much work for them and I live and work 800 miles away.

There are other issues I want to discuss with them, mainly involving healthcare access, credit, several insurances, what to do when my father cannot drive anymore, hygiene, if they want to age in place AND only in place, but where exactly, DNR and intubation status, will and burial...

They are cognizant but I feel they really don't want to talk about it and like many elder parents they wished these questions simply disappeared.

I've seen so much shit with eldercare and even having a plan doesn't mean shit won't happen, it means you'll know how to react and who to call.

I was thinking about inviting my parents to a meal at a quiet restaurant, pay the waiter handsomely and have an extensive conversation there. I don't want to have such a conversation at home because I don't want them to resent the room where I question their ability to live as independently as before.

I don't know if this makes me an asshole.

There is also a chance they storm out or start yelling at me and give me the silent treatment afterwards.

Other stuff means everything you find in a home: tv sets, music players, several sets of cutlery, china and coffee sets, mattresses, lamps, ceiling hanging lamps, books, clothes, magazines, portable radiators, curtains, linens, pans, microwaves, pots... The whole house has to go before selling it.

Some pans are good, I and my sister could use some of them but most of the stuff, bought during a lifetime, will either be sold or given away. Most of the stuff is not from well known brands or something that would catch a collector’s eye, just practical, sometimes reliable stuff, but we also have computer monitors 40 years old, briefcases, suitcases (and also printed bank extracts 15 years old and food expired 12 years ago).

I read realistically we could get 20% of the original value for most stuff, but nobody knows anymore how much each thing cost. Neither I know if this is somebody trying to low-ball me.

My father wants to list each item individually and post an online ad to sell the items over the course of several months. He has the time, is capable and I have nothing against it. Better now that he can decide what to keep and what to toss. How much can he get if the buyer pays transportation or comes to get it? Because the large items cannot be moved without a van and we don’t have one.

I however find it easier to bulk sell: forget the yard sale, contact directly a company that bulk buys second hand stuff (we know none), accept their price, they take it all and we move on. We would be selling books and clothes by weight (several hundreds of pounds) but we are not sure how to deal with larger items, like most furniture and cookware. Also by weight?

If you ever bulk sold stuff like this, what service did you hire? how much did you get? I don't want to have unrealistic expectations.

Or, what would be a better way to do this?

My father is sorting items in his huge houses, 2 of them, to sell, give away or dump as a hopefully previous step to downsizing, which took me to think about how much stuff of my childhood sits there wasting space, stuff I could try to sell or give away, because after my parents die I don’t plan to move back there: I’ve made my life elsewhere and down there there are no decent jobs.

The items: A huge collection of 300 or so music CDs and 50 vinyl records I bought between ages 15 and 25 of my favorite bands back then. I don’t believe I’d get even 2 bucks a piece, not even for the vinyls (no special editions), my library with 250 or so books I bought and received as presents during my childhood, including a complete encyclopedia, clothes that are already too small for my physique.

I moved out 10 years ago and I’ve rarely visited. Those items are more something I remember than something I need: I digitized the music library years ago, the books I like I can get online or I already have them, I could save some clothes that fit and toss the rest, I could also use my old bed and study table, because those things are actually useful. I don’t even have a CD or a vinyl player (my father does).

I know that stuff is only stuff and when I die, it will all remain here on earth and most probably be sold or destroyed, but I I just can't bring myself to throw them away, even though I know it’s the logical choice as a previous step to sell that old house.

Moving the stuff in with me makes me a hoarder, so no. Plus I don’t have that much space. And what would I move the stuff in with me for? It would sit there in boxes wasting space.

What worked for you?

ETA: Thank you all for providing your opinion about this question. I'm contacting my mother and asking her about what she would want, I'll follow her lead and support what she decides. As said I don't believe she wants those toxic family members or her families around on a moment so special like saying your last goodbye to a husband. And neither do I.

I'd prefer a public funeral excluding them or conducting a small Christian ritual for family only where we can mourn him like we want but if she wants them around, so be it.

Funerals are for the living.

Thank you all.

My Christian, old republican southerner father wants me to attend his Christian funeral with all of his surviving relatives present. I don’t believe in any god, he knows that. He needs a religion to give a meaning to his life? Knock yourself out.

Religion is not the main problem here. The main problem is how close minded and fake people are in a southern small town in GA and above all, relatives. 2 aunts love to pretend everything is fine, they excel doing that on funerals and weddings, then stab you in the back as soon as you’re not within ear distance, either need drama to feel important or have way too much free time.

I wouldn’t mind a small Christian ritual with my mother, my brother, a priest and nobody else, but these women and their husbands? They drag everyone down with their stupid grudges about yard sales and business deals made in the early 2020s and seem to be envious of those who left that place and found something better. Last time I saw them, 7 years ago, they complained I don’t call them. What for?

I’m better off without them and don’t have the bandwidth to deal with them.

Family seems to be an identity issue for my father, the idea that his whole family won’t bury him together scares him. I told them I will honor him my way, with luck on the hospital bed where he dies or at home, that mother and brother are welcome to honor him with me, that I won’t attend a funeral with people I don’t like but he is not listening: he is now retorting to manipulate me (it would be so good, wouldn’t it be nice…?)

My father is not cognitively impaired. The easy way out would be to tell him ‘sure, I’ll come to your funeral with all those assholes you care so much about’ and after he dies, ignore it. I suspect my mother would agree, because she wasn’t born in GA and these aunts always felt superior to her, something my father always downplays because ‘we’re family’.

I like treating my father like an adult and want genuine conversations with him. To me, placating him on a thing like this means accepting my father has become a 5 year old who needs to be lied to so he doesn’t start feeling sad or feels I’m attacking him. It doesn’t feel right.

But it feels worse to pretend I respect those lying assholes or to listen to their boring life I don’t care about.

So what do I do?

somebody suggested I'm in the middle of an existential crisis. Just read my last post.

Fine, seems to be true.

Do people snap out of this?

more than a question, this is just something that popped in my mind after taking a week off work already, a week without work means free time to hate the job you have, but in my case more than that I've been thinking about my childhood, my parents, my extended family, our holidays together, how insignificant we humans are, how fragile and short life is, how fast time goes by and how much I don't want to work.

I guess this is cliche, but when I had to work I didn't question my job this much, didn't think about my childhood or my dreams, I simply wanted to get the job done, go home, eat and disconnect till the next day. I was like a machine, or a moron.

I'll be a moron again when I have to work again. I don't want to work.

It's like I'm a different person when I'm not working.

Is this dangerous? People too busy with work don't think like this.

I want to write poetry, lay on the sun in summer, listen to the cicadas, eat oranges and apples, listen to relaxing music. I want to play the guitar.

my father is religious, I'm not and I don't care what happens to my body after I die. Burn me, use me to feed stray cats.

To me, wasting money to buy a plot of land so I may be buried with them when I die is a stupid idea.

It is, however, his money. Who am I to disagree with him?

We do exactly the same job.

To me the idea of enjoying a job is an odd one: I don’t want to work, I only work because I need the money. If I had money I wouldn't work.

I don't know if this makes me the oddest person on earth, but where I am my coworkers sometimes make me feel so.

She asked me if I enjoy my job. I looked at her surprised while thinking to answer her with a regular blanket manager answer like ‘it is such a honor to work here, fuck yeah, I’d love to work here for free!’ or being completely sincere.

I was in a good mood, so I chose being sincere: ‘I don’t enjoy working, I work because I need to pay for the rest of my life, I enjoy cooking, writing poetry and walking through a forest.’

She looked at me a bit surprised and replied: ‘but you have to like your job.’ My answer? ‘As long as I earn money all’s good.’

This happened in a big room with like 9 coworkers hearing the convo.

Now I don’t know if I just committed job suicide where I work at, but it was liberating saying out loud at the workplace what I think a job is.

And why the fixation that you must like a job? It’s a job for fucks sake. Why do you have to like it?

To me this only confirms my current job is a cult. Am I exaggerating?

If every workplace is like this I should stick with the devil I know...

you be the judge: the extra, unpaid hours most people willingly do setting the expectation you do that too, some people coming in 30 minutes before the shift starts and proud of it (what for? Are you going to be paid more?), obsession with presenting a good image to both coworkers and clients, the fake interest in getting to know you, conversations that feel scripted, forcing you to share about you, controlling the way you speak, yelling at the foreign coworkers when they don’t speak English among themselves, taking your breaks together with the whole group, ostracizing you if you want to take your break alone, getting snippy if you state boundaries (“I don’t talk about that with coworkers”), some people ranting openly and loudly in a room full of people about a coworker they don’t like for whatever perceived sling, your manager expecting you to enjoy her stories (no, I don’t really care about you, Andrea), then expecting you to be the one doing the most demanding tasks nobody wants to do.

I even have coworkers complaining I waste too much paper and that’s bad for the company. Who gives a flying fuck about that Karen? I really don’t understand why some people are like this.

Holy shit, I was so naive. I don’t know if every workplace is like this, but I just didn’t question it and went along with it because 2 years ago the workplace seemed good enough and pays better than everyone around afaik. I don’t know if I should look elsewhere.

If I start applying elsewhere, do I even mention this? Because I don’t want this to happen to me again.

There is a chance this also happens elsewhere. Do I stick with the devil I know?

I don't understand his strategy, he answers the prosecutor' questions extremely vaguely. I don't know if I could act like that if called as a witness.

Is this something I should imitate when dealing with HR?

I don't understand why how he answers is not lying.

On an email with my manager I described a coworker I only worked with once as a small, thin woman that was either born in an East Asian country or has East Asian parents. I don't know this person's name. I don't see a better way to describe her all things considered.

The managers answer: it is disrespectful to describe people according to ethnic background or physical appearance.

My next question for this manager: dear manager, how should I describe this person then?

I don't know if I'm being genuinely disrespectful or this is a very thin skinned manager. Either way, I had to work with another coworker I didn't know either. This conversation with manager B ensued:

manager B: 'today you're working with mike'

me: 'who's mike?'

manager B: 'that fat guy'

make it make sense.