May 31, 2006

He who would travel happily must travel light.

Three days of garage sale yielded a wad of cash and surprisingly less clutter reduction than I'd expected. I only put one little sign directly in front of the house, so I only got the people who happened to be driving down our street and yet, I was occasionally swarmed with buyers. Most were very nice, although I did get a couple of loud, angry types who grumbled about something being $1 when they thought it should be a penny and seemingly hoping that if they made a scene, I'd just hand them whatever they wanted to make them go away. I have a four-year-old, being loud and angry with me doesn't phase me. Fortunately these folks were few and far between, but I feel sorry for whatever other garage salers they've tried to cow. I did meet a lot of very nice people. One in particular, 'Paul', was interested in a curio cabinet we had on Saturday and came back Sunday, bearing bags of really wonderful bagels and cream cheese filled rolls from the bakery he works at, and bought the cabinet. Two guys who'd been childhood friends showed up to look at chairs and cds. They had been married and each had a couple of kids and sadly, they'd both gotten divorces in December and we're now room mates. One told me it was for financial convenience originally, but it also helped keep them from getting too depressed.
I plan to have another garage sale and get rid of the rest of the stuff that didn't sell and any other things I can drag out. This time I'll be putting up fliers in the local grocery stores and putting a large sign on the median at the nearest big intersection. I feel like I won't be able to get out of here until I'm light enough to travel and right now, that seems like a long way off.