Blog: All’s Fair in Love and Storage Wars

Each Wednesday night I toss my homework aside and plop down in front of the TV. It is the greatest night of the week, the best part of the day and a perfect way to relax. It’s “Storage Wars.” Yes, I admit it; I am a “Storage War” nut. I can watch a 10-hour marathon without blinking an eye or getting bored, a feat not too shabby considering the only other show I do that with is “America’s Next Top Model.”

The premise is simple enough. When storage lockers get abandoned they get auctioned off to the highest bidders. Each episode starts the same: a layout of the town where the storages are located, some smack talk from the bidders, the auction, the search and, finally, the results.

Dan and Laura Dotson run the auctions all over California and they have some rules. First off, once they open the locker the bidders are given five minutes to look inside the locker but cannot go in or touch anything. The person who bids the highest wins.

As simple as it sounds there are many layers to “Storage Wars.” First of all there is the weird and hilarious bidders. My personal favorite is Barry Weiss. While most of the bidders buy to re-sell, Barry focuses on improving his personal collection of antiques. The only word to describe him is B.A.M.F. Donning his signature shades and skeleton gloves Barry is always ready for a bid-off.

But the aspect that really keeps my attention is the amount of strategizing that goes into each auction. If Dave Hester, the experienced buyer and seller, bids on any locker, you know that there is something worth buying. On the other hand, if a bidder sees a particularly profitable item in a locker then he doesn’t want to let the others know.

After the lockers are auctioned off each bidder with a locker digs through, looking for buried gold. What they turn up can be the most exciting part of the show. Sometimes they find antique furniture, a guaranteed sale, while other times things like flasks with a spittoon included are dug up.

I don’t know what it is about this nitty-gritty show that has me glued to my seat, but what I do know is where I’ll be every Wednesday night at 10 o’clock.