Andy and I are buying our first house. It's been an awful experience and I've hated almost every second of it, but we're getting a beautiful older home with amazing renovations in a really neat neighborhood, so I know it will be worth it. To prepare for the move, we decided to hold a garage sale, since our self esteem wasn't already low enough. It's a little ridiculous how bad it makes you feel when someone drives by, looks at your old junk, and drives off. I was very hurt by their lack of desire to paw through my old t-shirts. Luckily, I had Phyllis to cheer me up.
We decided to hold the garage sale in Mom and Dad's front yard, since Andy and I currently rent an apartment in a tenement building surrounded by meth labs (I exaggerate only slightly). Mom decided that she should go through her house and sell some old stuff, too. And then the fun really began!
Beanie Babies with the plastic tag protectors still on. Souvenir cups from restaurants at the beach. An endless supply of can koozies. A plaster cast of Mom's teeth, found in the kitchen cupboard. The discoveries piled up on one another in a great creeping pile of absurdity. Mom started out with excellent intentions, but as the day progressed, she just kept finding things she desperately needed to keep, although she hadn't seen them in decades. "Oh, my wooden napkin rings! How I have missed them! I shall clasp them to my bosom and sob with relief and joy that you have unearthed them from under the two-foot high pile of old playing cards!" She got really emotional when we dug up her collection of melon ballers. Phyllis has never balled a melon in her whole life, but "they're Pampered Chef!" She had several sizes of melon ballers, in case she wanted to have melon balls in small, medium, and large, I suppose for if Goldilocks's bears came over for tea. We also discovered many egg separators ("I need those!") and an egg-shaped microwave egg boiler ("I might use that!") Mom and I had several epic tug-of-war battles, but we managed to clear out three large boxes of crap just from the kitchen.
I am intentionally avoiding dwelling on the canister of cornmeal that expired in 1999.
Once we dragged all of Phyl's treasures out onto the yard and added our mounds of crap, we had a pretty decent garage sale. The highlight was definitely the woman who exited her car, picked up an ice cream scoop, asked the price, and, when told that it would cost twenty-five cents, heaved a sigh, set the scoop down, and left. I apologize to you, Our Lady of Ice Cream Scoops, for breaking your budget.
