I haven’t had a garage sale in about five years.
Since my two older girls were at camp last week, I seized the opportunity to purge my entire house of clutter. You wouldn’t believe the pile of stuff that I ended up with.
Usually I sell at the Kids’ Stuff Sale at Garfield Park, so I had lots of kids' clothes and toys and books saved up. When I brought all that up from the basement and added it to the “purge pile,” I ended up with a virtual mountain of stuff. There was so much of it that I decided to have a garage sale.
When the kids got home, the first thing Sadie (the packrat) said was, “Why do you always clean out when we aren’t home?”
Hmm. I looked at her and said, “Why do you think? Don’t you dare get anything out of this pile!”
I spent the rest of the week cleaning out the garage, sorting, borrowing tables, setting up tables, making signs, making price tags, making lemonade and making cookies.
Unfortunately, I managed to choose the weekend when it was hotter than a two-dollar pistol. Yes, I actually saw two trees fighting over a dog. As I sweated my butt off and got a sunburn, I watched as people parked in my yard and hauled off my stuff for 1/50th of what I paid for it.
That plus the heat kind of put me in a bad mood.
My kids, however, set up their lemonade stand (well, I set it up for them) in the shade and proceeded to ooze their cuteness and rake in the quarters. They even got TIPS. I couldn’t even get $1 for a pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans!
Don’t get me wrong. Most of the people who patronized my sale were super nice and friendly – they are my fellow “garage-salers,” just out looking for a deal. There were a couple of meanies though. I’d rather just give my stuff to charity than sell it to meanies.
Here’s my three day schedule:
Put signs up. Pull tables out. Set up stuff. Sort out kids’ clothes. Set up lemonade stand. Make lemonade. Get change. Trip over skis that won't sell for $5. Sweat butt off. Get sunburn. Bicker over 50 cents. Watch yard get turfed. Listen to dog bark head off. Take back pain medicine. Put more ice in lemonade. Pick up everything that fell off table. Take signs down. Pull tables in. Collapse in A/C.
I finally gave up and called Purple Heart to come and pick up about 20 bags of leftovers. I never want to see any of that stuff again!
Nope, I hadn’t had a garage sale in over 5 years.
And now I remember why.
-from my 7-22-12 article for www.mentorpatch.com
