We recently held what was—I’m praying—our last garage sale. Ever. On a mission all summer long, I purged every drawer, closet, toy box, and crawl space in our house of the things we no longer need or use. The cumulative effect of our collective hoarding was remarkable: three-wheeled toy cars; mismatched sheet sets; an eclectic set of wine glasses, no two alike; a bent brass candelabra; wobbly chairs; shadeless lamps; and on and on. We organized things by class, made some funky signs, got up at the crack of dawn to stage our junk attractively, and—by eight a.m.—were in business.
Garage sale people are an interesting breed. Part of the fun, I’m guessing, is the give and take of barter. Price something at a quarter, and they’ll offer a dime. Sell it for a dime, and they’ll quibble with you, offering to lug it out of your life for a nickel. This is something I don’t especially like.
We had a lot of families at our sale, and I enjoyed giving treats to the kids. With my own children moving rapidly into more sophisticated hobbies, we had had a plethora of stuffed cuddlies to unload. A monkey dressed in a San Francisco Giants costume, a palm-sized Rudolph, about fifteen neon-colored snakes. It was fun letting the little ones choose something from the big baskets of toys to take home. I felt like Santa.
When you drag a pile of unwanted stuff into the front yard, it tends to attract the neighbors. Not the near neighbors whose names you already know, but the second-tier neighbors, the ones whose cars look familiar but you’ve never had occasion to talk to before. Turns out we have some pretty nice people living up and down our street. So, in addition to the clean cupboards and tidy closets, the divestment of old treasure accomplished, we also picked up a few new assets of our own. Human ones, the kind that don’t chip or bend or go out of style.
