Yard Sale

Today I was a part of our community's annual yard sale day.  I haven't done it before because I always felt too bad to fool with it, but what with the cleaning out this summer, I had lots of stuff that would be salable, so I got up at five this morning, drug all my stuff out into the dew-wet yard, and waited for the customers.

I have to admit, the whole process took me back in time.  I used to do this with my Granny all the time.  She would load up her big brown station wagon, or, if we had a lot of stuff, one of the trucks and take her stuff to one of the local areas where people did garage sales on Saturday.  Sometimes, she'd have one here occasionally.  I went as free labor and company.  I spent a number of Saturdays doing that.

I had really forgotten what it was like.  It was icy cold in the pre-dawn darkness this morning. I had to come back inside and put on a sweatshirt.  Then there was the "waiting."  Waiting for people to show up, waiting for them to look over what I had to see if it was of interest, waiting for them to decide if they wanted to buy....

Then there is the mixed pleasure of dealing with the shoppers themselves.  Almost everybody I encountered today was delightful.  Some of them said they come to this sale every year.  I heard one woman talking on the phone saying that she was willing to get a "write up" at work for missing today just to come out to the sales.  It made me think of the way people talk about Canton Flea Market, and I've never really thought about anything related to us in that way.

And then there were the types of people who showed up in my yard.  I had a woman in an honest-to-God clown hat who'd raced home from work to make the sales.  I had a guy who had served as a bar bouncer tell me about the time four women "helped" him spend $800 on his birthday.  I had one of my best friends and her two girls who are always a delight.  The older woman who was buying things to paint for bingo prizes.  Church members.  The guy who unexpectedly turned out to be my cousin.  The many, many people who had known my grandparents and remembered them.

It surprised me how much people liked my ramshackle old house, the ghosts I made that decorate my trees.  I had several people ask me about them and tell me that I should start making them and selling them.  I had thought about that before.  I think I will try it for next year.

The other thing people consistently commented on was the log smokehouse that sits next to my house.  I had several people ask jestingly if I was selling it.  I never think about how unusual it is, I guess.  It has always been a part of this place, of my Granny and Grandaddy's house.  To see it through someone else's eyes was refreshing.

I had two goals this morning.  One was to get rid of a lot of big furniture stuff that has accumulated.  The second was to make enough money to replace my ailing Kindle.  I think I accomplished that.  I didn't get rid of all the stuff, but that was probably unrealistic anyway. From what I remember about yard sales, nobody EVER gets rid of all the stuff...

What I got instead of a clean sweep was a feeling I almost never have here, of being a part of the community.  Since I work elsewhere and didn't go to school here, I usually feel very much like an outsider.  Today, I almost felt like I was a real part of this place, not just a descendant of or a stander-on-the edges.  It was...nice.