Friday, July 19, 2013

Garage Sale

Our neighborhood sponsored a block garage sale last weekend, on Saturday - one of the hottest days of the year. My husband and I found out about it on Friday night, which didn't leave much time to prepare, but still - the opportunity to get rid of some of the junk in our basement and attic was too good to pass up.

Like two crazed people, on Saturday morning we dashed around the house, grabbing items in boxes and conferring - "Can I get rid of this?" "Hell yeah you can!"

Both of us had gone through the Clean-Up-After mode when my mom passed away. Boxes, files, drawers, books - so many things to take to Goodwill or just throw out. It was great to reduce our own stockpile of unnecessary crap.

Why did we have three unused TV's? How had we accumulated so many jello molds? And in heaven's name, where had all those stuffed animals come from?
Dude, you missed it!

Meanwhile, as we triumphantly dragged the stuff to the Sell pile, our daughter watched anxiously. At her end of the life spectrum, she wanted to keep everything - not let anything change.

Garage sale people are early people. It was 8:30, and already the cars had begun to troll the streets with rubbernecking passengers looking for the good haul.

Our old bikes sold right away.
So did old video games.
They laughed at our TV collection - my husband ended up giving those away at work.
A surprising number of books sold (I would have paid them to haul them off!)
Old coats - gone.
The bed rails, right out of the package and never used - spurned.
Ditto the jello molds. But I can't really blame the shoppers for that.

While the cars rolled passed, my husband and I ran back and forth, grabbing more stuff. Garage sale fever had gotten into our blood, as the pile of ones in his pocket piled up and the basement emptied out. The kid kept sneaking stuff back into the house, which didn't help, until we had to resort to bribery to be allowed to sell it.
You know you want them.

The rain started, of course. Why would it not? We only had a table full of TV's and books in the front yard. DH flapped a tarp over the junk and continued to sell.

At the end of the day, we were sweatier than we had ever been before. My calf muscles ached. We still had to bring the unsold goods back downstairs. Still, we sold a lot - some of it baby items to a young couple who seemed very happy to get it. And isn't that what it's all about?

However, if anyone wants a set of bedrails and some jello molds - call me.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Nothing as good as a junk purge.
Have you ever read/seen that big coffee-table book about the stuff we own? I think it's by the same people who wrote the book about what we eat. The authors of the book went around the world and photographed everyone outside of their homes with everything they owned--lugged out onto the front lawn. It's a real eye opener. My daughter loved it and she lives like a monk now. (Except she moves her un-monklike junk into my garage.
Fodder for the next sale!
Fun summer post!
~Just Jill

Alison DeLuca said...

I have not seen that book, and I would be ashamed to put all my crap on the lawn! Oh, god, the plastic bag collection alone *shudder*