There comes a time in everyones life that the only way out is a garage sale.
And for downsizing baby boomers it's lurking on the horizons. Why oh Why
don't we just have our favorite charity come and collect the whole pile. We don't
because we secretly want to berate ourselves and cheer ourselves up at the same time.
So the ritual of the garage sale is our own personal exorcism for what we bought.
Come to think of it I'd really rather clean up Linda Blairs green slime and watch her
head whip round. But instead I'm having a garage sale.
At first I was sort of organized (for me) and I sent my daughter nice little texts that
said stash or sell ? When I didn't get answers I started getting a little pissed and started
making my own fashion decisions. Ted Gunn...stop me now.
I see a huge theme here. Apparently I wanted to be married to a Duke or a Marquise or
something because I have enough silver to outfit the next season of Downton Abby.
I don't want any of it. But of course I don't want anyone to think I''m anti-Martha Stewart
so I started polishing it. Really.? I haven't done that in years. I am like a mad woman on
a mission. Some of it is actually starting to look pretty good and I'm thinking.... well
I might need that someday. Sure. Perhaps the silver dinner bell. I'm going to look
forward to the day when I ring the tiny bell and someone brings me my food .
Another thing I discovered about myself. I am a holiday junkie. Show me a holiday
and I have a zillion bunnies/Santa's/angels/witches to go with it. And talk about vases
and props. I honestly think I might have been destined for an event planning career.
Then there are the things I bought at other garage sales that I knew would become
important to me and they never did. I didn't set up that dark room like I wanted to and
I didn't send ten of my closest friends the beautiful flower arrangements in the vases I
bought for that purpose.
I truly hate garage sales, and I want to bitch slap the people who want to pay 75cents
for a mans pressed shirt straight from the cleaners. Seriously...it cost $1.25 to launder it.
I have pure hatred for the people who show up an hour early.
I probably shouldn't even be doing this. But here I am. I will bargain , and laugh and
chatter with the people that come. I will get a secret thrill when someone likes something
and feel sad when the purse I paid $200 for is sold for $5.00. I will choke up a little bit
when one of my children's books goes home with a little toddler. But it's all part of
the process. I loved every one of those things when I bought them...and now hopefully
someone else will like them to. Or I may be buying it back in their next garage sale.
Tell me your garage sale stories!!!!
