The Great American Garage Sale.
Got some crap to hock? There's bound to be someone
out there with an OCD driving them to collect it.
I don't know why I didn't talk my wife out of this
garage sale. Now it's Sunday, and she's opened up shop for a second day. We
made something like $140 yesterday. I've been told that's pretty good. Sorry -
not worth it. I spent two days organising little parts of my history, trying to
assess the value of things that essentially only have sentimental value, and
then laying them out for the general public to pick through like garbage at a
dump.
"Got any fishin' gear, today?" one older
guy asked me.
"Nope.
Sorry."
After picking around for a bit, he
spotted a UPS (uniform power supply) unit labelled "FREE!" This particular item
didn't have any sentimental value, just so you
know.
He asked me "so, what... the battery's
burned out in this?"
"Yep," I told him.
"Burned out."
"So I just need to replace the
battery?"
"As far as I know,
yep."
"Where would I get something like
that?"
"Well, if I knew
that..."
I didn't need to finish the thought.
With a nod, he gave me a buck for a set of wooden barbecue skewers and headed
back to his car, wooden skewers and free UPS in
hand.
Moments later, an older man and
woman pulled up in a slightly younger, but equally tired, car. The woman got
out and lumbered over to me, bent and weary, probably from a life of garage sale
scavenging, and through squinty eyes, asked me rather brusquely if I had any
clocks.
I showed her to an old digital alarm
clock that my parents had given me when I went off to college. That clock had
not only woken me up for music classes and finals, but a few years later, would
wake me up for the "Look Who's Talking" sessions on the 20th Century Fox sound
stage and the "Problem Child 2" sessions on the Universal sound stage shortly
after that. It had been responsible for getting me to meetings on time, getting
me up for the three days of shooting on "Quitters", and even getting me to the
church on time the day I got married. The clock and I had
history.
"Nah, that's electric. He doesn't
want that. He likes to take them apart."
"Ah.
Sorry." But I wasn't sorry.
Although, I was
relieved my clock had been spared evisceration, I was horrified to think what
their house must look like. Clock guts strewn about the
place...
No, garage sales are not for me.
Two women's handbags for seventy-five cents apiece. A woman talked me down to
one dollar for the pair. She didn't have to try very hard; I'm sure the fifty
cents were far more important to her than to me... but still, 33% off something
that should've cost five times that to begin
with!
The next time my wife decides to
have a garage sale, I'm going out of
town.
Oh... and about 90% of the stuff is
still here. At least I've managed to put a price on my memories: Two dollars
for each or two for three bucks.
Posted: Sun - October 23, 2005 at 09:08 AM