| I have to tell you that I'm glad the HLCC Garage Sale is over for the year. It's been a good 4+ weeks of pouring through clutter and storage and memories and "smell things"* and having the strength to let go of those things that are representative of a time, place, or person that is no longer here. It's exhausting. Thanks to Kim, I was inspired, and she cheer-leaded me to go further in releasing things than ever before. Then it's time to sort. Kim did most of that piece, placing some order out of chaos!!! Brava. But, then time to price things. Egads, how do you price something that is pure "smell thing"? That invokes a memory? And then the foolish items that cost, literally, lots of money, really, I'm admitting to it having cost a LOT of money, and then have to put a price on it so that it will sell, knowing fully that people will still think it isn't worth the ridiculously low price of $5 and try to get it at an even lower price? Seeing the items again as you price it, and displaying the items you just let go of for the sale, makes it tough to not grab it, grab what it represents to oneself, and take it back into the house again. It's emotionally draining to put a price on these pieces of life, people, animals, hopes and foolishness -- i.e. my history. Yet, somehow I did it. I worked the sale with Kim from about 8:20AM on, but finally crashed about 3:00PM, leaving Kim to finish the sale for me. I was too tired to hang in any more, and I also knew we were going to have to deal with the end-o-day shoppers who want it for free, who think they are doing me a favor by taking things away and undercutting the price to pennies. So I did leave with Kim's permission, and Gordy's promise to hang with Kim. Kim packed everything up to be readied for Good Cheer and WAIF (our local animal shelter) charity -- she knows me so well, that if I saw what remained, and those things were accessible, they just may grow legs and walk back into the house.... Kim is an unbelievable friend, as is her husband Doug. BTW, Gordy, put a few things up for sale which is truly huge for him. In some way he's more of a pack-rat than moi! If you knew me, you'd realize what a huge statement that is! The next step is getting the merchandise to the charities, and me staying away from the garage until it's gone. Phew, the day is done!
"pregnant pause"OTOH, there were a few highlights of the sale. Getting a wee coo-coo, Kim and I started to put odd signs on some items. Such as a rug for sale saying "Don't tread on me, take me home"; a coffee table, "I have wheels, wheeeeee"; the ab-doer "Serious Abs"; and in right in front of everything, our 1989 Toyota, with the garage sale here sign leaning against it, with an auto cover on it, "Tarp $10, car free with purchase"... it was funny and fun.
Even the most dour of shoppers smiled and laughed. A young man got the car (free), his Mom bought the tarp 1/2 price $5. A woman came in, and since it was a community sale, I asked her if "she'd been around the block yet" and she replied, totally dead-pan, "A couple of times". I had a great Homedics lounge chair that had heat and many different massage options for it. I was asking a mere $15, but a gent offered me $5. I was going to say no, or at least split the difference, when his wife, daggers and sparks flying from her eyes, spit out "You can NOT bring that home into the house!!", then she glared at me and Kim, so I said, "sure". He asked his wife to bring the Jeep up the hill so he could load it. She said "no, you bought it -- there is no place for it". He said he'd put it in "his room" downstairs in the basement, and she said "no you wont", and he replied that she wouldn't even see it. She was so angry she said that when he went with it downstairs, she'd lock him in the room, from the outside!!!
Oooopsie.
He left smiling very happily, and she fumed and glared at Kim and me, not glancing at her elderly husband wrestling with the massage chair as he followed her to the Jeep. Methinks I need some protective white light around me and mine for a while. She knows where I live ....
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*that's what I call the items that equate with a person -- cats rub you to put their mark, their odor or, in me-terms, "smell things" on you -- to own you.
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