Final Sale

I believe in recycling. I think all of us should do our part to protect the environment, reuse as much as possible and try our hardest not to waste resources. So, here's my promise. I vow to recycle everything I can, shop resale stores, buy from local farmers, and turn off water while I'm brushing my teeth. I promise to do all these things in exchange for just one thing in return. Please, please, please do not make me EVER have another garage sale.

When my kids were little, I was a garage sale nut. Most Thursday or Friday mornings from May until September would find me hunting for treasures on some stranger's driveway. I purchased ninety percent of my kids' clothes and a healthy amount of all the other stuff that filled their rooms from neighborhood treasure hunts. When they had outgrown their Osh Kosh overalls and Carter's sleepers, I would gather all my bargains and resell them for what (or sometimes even more than) I paid for them. But as much as I loved the first part of the equation, I grew to hate the second. All the preparation - the washing, sorting, tagging, hanging was bad enough but it was the haggling, greedy, unreasonable, sticker-switching patrons of these bargain fests that finally did me in. A couple of hundred dollars was not worth two days of sitting in a lawn chair dealing with any of them. I vowed to pack up all my future goodies and donate them to some worthy charity in return for a nice tax deduction. That plan worked for almost twenty years.

This past weekend I was (nicely) coerced into hosting a garage sale with my mom and sister. C'mon, they said. It'll be fun. We'll clean out our basements and make a few bucks. I knew what I was getting into but I thought, hey, I'll get rid of some stuff and spend a couple of days hanging out with my family. How bad could it be?

The good news first. We had great weather. Two sunny days in the eighties. We also had fairly steady crowds, a few of which even paid the price on the sticker. But the rest? The devious, penny-pinching zealots that I so hated dealing with? Oh, they were out in full force, confirming everything I always hated about letting complete strangers ravage through my personal (if unwanted) belongings. We even had one woman who aggravated me so much with her guerrilla tactics that I would have ran the items over with my SUV rather than let her have them.

So, what did I learn from all of this? Well, I have a great mom and sister that I enjoyed spending two exhausting days with. I also learned that there are crazy people who are willing to humiliate themselves over a quarter. But, the most important lesson I learned is that there are easier, much easier ways to earn $66.75.

Now that I've packed up what went unsold, I'm off to where it should have gone in the first place, the donation box at the Goodwill store. I promise all you wonderful charitable organizations who sort through everyone's junk I will not to be tempted by the dark side again. But, if I am, I've instructed my husband to slap some sense into me. Just remind me of that obnoxious woman who wanted that evening purse for fifty cents. That ought to do it.