Ruby girl, someone will miss you and your latch-hooking

Yesterday Bud's dad and I went to an estate sale. I had never been to one before and could not shake the feeling that someone had just died one day, at which point his or her children had thrown the front door open to the public and said, Come on in and rifle through my parent's stuff. That's what it felt like to me. What broke my heart the most were the framed latch-hook rugs hanging on the wall, selling for $4 apiece. I know they were ugly - so ugly in fact I kept staring at them thinking there had to be some mistake. BUT. Someone - and I'm guessing it was the woman who lived there - took hours of her time to craft each piece of...art, and then frame them. Now I could buy one for $4. Aside from the creepiness, I did keep gravitating towards the kitchen because that is my favorite place in any house. There were all these enamel pots and cups and canisters - although it looked as if the woman of the house (whom I later found out was named Ruby (I know, even the name is sadly reminiscent)) had collected antiques and these were something she found at her own estate sale trips - that I was tempted to, but did not buy. There was also a paper towel holder. Not an antique or even a modern appliance trying to imitate an antique, just a plain old wooden holder. Bud and I need one for our kitchen so I picked it up and carried it around with me while I debated whether I wanted a dead person's paper towel holder or not. I went to unscrew the cap - just to make sure no old lady's estate was cheating me! - and ripped off the knob. I don't know, apparently this one didn't unscrew. I brought it to the front like a 5 year old and explained that I'd broken it and would be happy to buy it but, hey really, these things normally unscrew. The woman behind the folding table was nice enough to tell me not to worry and she took it from me - I guess to re-glue and maybe trick someone else. What I did finally find was an old whiskey bottle with a painted cowboy Indian on the front. He's on a horse in the snow and the front of the bottle feels like ceramic. Bonus - turns out the bottle is still half full of whiskey. To dull the pain maybe, of those latch-hook pictures.