A Blog by Gail Cushman
I am not a hoarder; I would swear to it. I don’t shop much, I’d rather travel. I toss stuff away regularly. Yet, when I wanted to put something away, I couldn’t find space enough to do that. The closets, drawers, and even the garage were filled to the gills. The solution: Garage Sale.
For example, sweatshirts. I have ten, and don’t know why. Two of them have special meanings, and one of those is old and worn out, giving me old-sweatshirt-comfort, and the other one makes me chuckle. I bought it in Aruba, which is an island that lies pretty close to Venezuela. I paid for it, and left the shop, then put it on because, somehow, I managed to go to Aruba on their coldest day in history. Seconds after leaving the shop, the Spanish-speaking store clerk was chasing me, “Halta, Ladrona,” which means, loosely translated. “Stop Thief!” I had been in a hurry to get back to the ship before it sailed away, and I didn’t stop, although I understood the words. I had paid hard earned pesos for the sweatshirt and it was mine. She caught up with me, then realized the mistake. I showed her the receipt and she let off a lot of swear words, (I think). We were sort of a spectacle, and now that sweatshirt is a fave, because it’s a story and I’m not about to let it go.
The trouble with a garage sale is that it takes planning. When I moved to Montana, we had stowed a bunch of “stuff” in the garage, and it was time to pare it down. The Cowboy and I are all about adventure, so we set a date, and began the Great Garage Sale Adventure. Good stuff, slightly used, but who wouldn’t want it? One woman’s trash is another’s treasure, I said, and the Cowboy agreed. He always agrees, though, so it wasn’t a big surprise. Cowboy’s deceased wife Patty was a crafting person, and we found more crafting stuff than you could imagine. Plus, two TV’s, toy boxes, a few clothes, cookbooks. You know the cache; it was full of the usual irresistible “garage sale stuff.” We spent four days preparing, two days working on advertising, and finally it was time. It was Friday night, and tomorrow, Saturday, we would be rid of all the “stuff” in just six hours. Wahoo.
The first customer arrived that night, before the sale started, “Got any tools? I don’t have much money but need a left-handed monkey wrench. Got one?”
I didn’t have any monkeys, nor did I have any monkey wrenches. The first sale failed.
Customer two arrived at 0800 on the morning of the sale, “I’m just looking,” as she gathered up a few bits of here and there, a whole grocery bag of this and we were underway! We high-fived, confident that it would be a success. The rest of the morning was a parade of Americana, ranchers, neighbors, teachers, all arriving, in their fancy pickups or rusty jalopy’s. They were hoping to find their special treasure. A diamond in the rough.
The Cowboy’s boat was sitting in the driveway, remember that is big, but it also appealed to the majority of males who showed up, “That boat for sale?” we heard over and over. Of course, Cowboy just shook his head, and nodded toward the stack of lampshades, the recliner that nobody wanted, and a tableful of scuba gear.
“How much you take for this. You marked it $4 but will you take $3? Was a common conversation. Sometimes the bantering was humorous, whether they would pay a buck or 75 cents for that rare vinyl LP by Johnny Mathis. I love Johnny Mathis, Chances Are, and it broke my heart to say “sure.” Then, she said, “It’s going to a good home,” as if Johnny knew and I cared.
The rest of the day was bargaining, helping people load, catching up on the hay and barley crop, and at last, we sat down, stared out the nearly empty garage bay, and Cowboy said, “Let’s go to the dump.”
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