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The Great Garage Sale Bust
Elberon, NJ May 27, 2000
Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
OUR GREAT GARAGE SALE BUST
Our great garage sale of last weekend was a bust. We believed droves of
people would hurry up our driveway and then walk away with bunches of our
old stuff. Unfortunately, the weather called the shots. Drizzle and cold
kept us huddled around an electric radiator bundled in down coats while the
droves of buyers stayed away. Our dreams of financial reward for a lot of
hard work dwindled down to just a little more than we paid for a couple of
guys to clean out our attic, crawl space and garage rafters. The last time
I went through this - preparation to move out of a house - I swore that it
would be the last time. I remember thinking "Are we having fun yet?"
It is amazing to see people come into our garage and spend a lot of time
looking for some treasure they must have. Before they came here they
visited all over checking out the availables in other venues. It seems that
garage or driveway sales are a popular entertainment for the masses on
weekends. And, you never can tell.
I love the sight of a garage sale - on some other property than ours.
Carol sniffs when I call out while driving, "Hey, look over there. There
must be some great stuff in that pile over there." My thought is that I
might find (if given permission to pull over) the odd piece that is missing
from the number of incomplete things I had safely tucked away in this box or
on that shelf up there. Now I will have phantom images of incomplete things
once possessed for they are all gone now.
We were lucky in having a "liquidator" come and tell us she would cart all
the remainders away in the belief that among our junk treasures could be
found. In addition, we were told she would give away huge chunks to
"charities" and return with receipts telling the tax people of our wonderful
goodness in giving them "treasures". This is a great deal like surfing the
web to find treasures because the providers of web space advertise other
peoples' "stuff" they want to sell you. It seems having junk spread out
before you either on driveways, in garage sales or on the "Web" seduces the
senses of a great many of us.
Carol's Evaluation: 9 out of 10
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