The Yard Sale 

So, I cleaned out my garage the other day, or as I like to call it, The Pit of Despair.  Our garage is the joke of the neighborhood.  People just gape when they look in it.  Floor to ceiling, door to door crap.  We can't even fit the trash and recycling inside.  I was waiting for a nice day to tackle the monumental (emphasis on "mental"), task and low and behold, Mother Nature decided that this was going to be the week.  It took from 9am until 6pm, but the job is done.  I pulled everything out of the garage and made two big piles, one on either side of the driveway.  One pile was stuff we have to keep, the other pile was stuff we have to get rid of.  I got almost forty dollars when I took back our old beer bottles.  There is a scary pile of stuff to go to the next hazardous waste depot, and a pile of "electronic waste".  Apparently the electronic waste disposal stream ends at our house!  But all of these piles are not nearly as disturbing to me as the biggest one.  The Yard Sale Pile.

I don't "hate" yard sales.   I have a great distaste for them though.  It's not that I have anything against a good deal, it's just that there's just something very awkward about rooting through  someones old junk while they stand there watching you.  I'm also not a good wheeler, dealer.  I'm always afraid someone will snap if I suggest that their ugly ass tea set isn't worth the thirty dollars they're asking for it.  I especially don't like having yard sales myself.  I don't want to have to argue with rude jerk-offs who don't believe that my beautiful tea set is worth the fifty bucks i'm asking for it.  You'll be standing there and people will say, right in front of you, "Holy cow!  That is the ugliest painting I've ever seen!"  Scuse me?  One of those poker playing dogs looks just like my Scrappy!!  The nerve!  The whole thing is just so distasteful.

I would much rather, (and have many times in the past), just load up my car and drop the whole pile at the nearest Value Village.  This time however, my husband is putting his foot down.  He will not allow me to get rid of anything.  Everything it seems is worth something.  We, and by we I mean me, will have to have a yard sale. Terrific.

Problem number 1.  We live on a cul de sac.  Nobody comes here except the 10 people who live on our street.  Not exactly a huge yard sale crowd.  If I want to attract customers I will have to put an add in the paper (eating some of my profits), and post about 10 signs in either direction telling people the way to go.

Problem number 2.  We have no tables on which to display our numerous priceless items.  I will have to borrow some from someone or rent some, (more money down the tubes).

Problem number 3.  Trying to sell anything that Jake brought into our relationship.  Everything must go apparently, unless it is his.  No!  I cannot sell his childhood toys still in their original packages.  These are not mint condition items on special display in our house.  These are old, used, worn out toys that have been serving as winter homes for the mice in our garage for the past 5 years.  But no, they are untouchable.  As is the box of 25 year old guitar magazines that I found during the clean up (covered in mouse poop!).  No these things are much to wonderful to part with.

All this trouble to earn about fifty bucks?  And anything that doesn't sell will just go to Value Village anyway. I ask you, couldn't we just skip along to the last step and avoid all the bother in between?  Doubtful.  I'll let you know how the yard sale goes.

Michy