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Garage sales are great for destroying fond memories
By Debbie Farmer
Summer is the season for baseball, barbecues, and swimming. But in my neighborhood, it's also time to spend Saturday mornings behind an aluminum table, in the place usually reserved for the car or a dog, selling items that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. I decided to have a garage sale the day I opened my closet and was nearly killed by an avalanche of 5-year-old maternity clothes and a Cabbage Patch doll.
I spent a week cleaning out multitudes of baby paraphernalia, and instructed my husband to sort through his dowry of rusty treasures stored in the garage since our wedding.
I organized the contents of my household into three piles--used (baby accessories, birthing books and support hose); never-been-used (electric breast pump, Thigh Master and cookbooks with recipes that require more than five ingredients); and will-never-be-used-again (size seven jeans, sewing machine and anything my husband repaired).
My husband's pile consisted of an electric exit sign he found three years ago in a dumpster and a pair of crutches. I knew then it would be up to me to sell our castoffs and increase the storage space in our home.
I woke up early on Saturday morning and arranged my belongings on the driveway. Then I sat in a beach chair and waited, thinking this was the best idea I ever had because soon my closets would be uncluttered, and I wouldn't be risking my life every time I needed a sweater. I closed my eyes and dreamed about the extra storage space and cash in my future.
"Excuse me." My reverie was broken by a woman waving my son's first rattle. "How much is this?"
A vision of my son, playing with the rattle in his bassinet, flashed through my mind.
"I'm not sure how that got out here," I said, as I snatched it out of her hand and tossed it to safety behind the lawn mower. "It's not for sale."
I settled back into my chair and relaxed until a group of women came up the driveway and encircled my daughter's crib.
"How much is it?" one of them asked.
I pictured my daughter asleep and sucking her thumb safely beneath the covers. "Sorry, it's just a display." I propped the crutches up on the side and threw a disco outfit over the top.
The morning got worse when a negotiation with a 6-year-old over a BarbieFarmer-3 camper, grew more intense than the Middle East peace process and I sold my daughter's ballet slippers and sobbed for 15 minutes over the matching leotard. I decided to quit when I sprained my back trying to hide boxes of baby clothes behind the water heater.
I closed the garage door, stumbled into the house and collapsed on the couch. Then I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of money and vaguely wondered what my husband would say when he found the children's belongings hidden all over the garage.
At least I had more closet space, I thought, as I crammed the money back into my pocket, but that was the toughest $8 I ever made.
Readers can contact Debbie Farmer at debbie@ecis.com.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
