A couple of weeks ago I was on vacation in another state, when my phone rang. It was a lady who lives on a farm outside a small town some miles from my home. She told me the following:
Her grandparents had lived in a large house in the town from 1924 to 1960, her parents had lived in the house from 1960 to the present, and she and her sisters had grown up there. Thus the house was full of stuff from three generations. Her parents had recently passed away and the three sisters had gotten together and taken out what they wanted. They had also boxed up everything that was left and needed someone to liquidate it for them.
I got the call on a Wednesday, told her that I would be back home Friday night, and made an appointment to meet with her on Saturday morning. On Thursday afternoon she called and said that I didn’t need to come because her son and some of his friends had gotten a couple of the big grain trucks from the farm and hauled everything left at the house to the dump. They had not told her they were going to do this, because “they wanted to surprise her by helping”!
Postscript: I have seen similar things happen many times over the years, and always cringe when people tell me that the kids are "Coming to town to help".