Going Once, Going Twice - Gone!

This weekend my travels took me through the dark and crowded mazes of the garage sale.  I got to stick my nose into the fine art of the garage sale from the proprietor's side of the table.  I held a garage sale for my mother who had a collection of unique and interesting things acquired through years of gathering and neatly storing.  There were things that dated back to my grandparents and even my great grandparents.  It's amazing what a shelf can hold when you dig to the back of those neatly stacked piles.

It was weeks of preparation and doubts that customers would even come through the door.  Worse, we chose of all weekends, the one weekend in May that has had rain consistently over every year I can remember.  Don't ask me why about either the sale or the rain but somethings just are.  Fortunately, the rain greeted us only one day but even that I didn't notice, I was too busy hopping from one customer query to another.

It is on the working floor of the garage sale that you meet the underpinnings of the garage sale circuit; the antique dealers, the unique dealers and the scroungers.  They are the people that scoop up everything they think they might resell or what may be of value.  Value is a two pronged sword and often value only meant interest - two or three dollars worth.  But who knew that a plastic phonograph/radio with a chunk out of its side was worth even that.  After all it was worthless to one dealer but worth a gentleman's argument for another two.  And that iron stove that almost amputated toes, well it went out the door, rust, ancient coal dust and all.  

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There are people who just collect, there are people who collect and recycle and there are those - well, those that just like to snoop and discover something unique or just plain reuseable.  And you know, I don't mind garage sales, most days, I mean arriving as a customer.  I like snooping through new old stuff.  I don't know what's with that.  But I do know as I sat in my plastic chair poised to process yet another transaction that I couldn't help going through the book table to my left.  And yes I did rescue one, then two and finally three.  But I didn't get that book, the one that one man had me leaping out of my chair for the hundred dollar bill he claimed was between it's pages.  Wrong.  And I didn't bother to tell him that it was too late for April Fools.

But most of all what I got from that garage sale were characters, characters with more stories than I have time to tell in such a short blog post.  It was that moment in time when my life intersected with people I might not normally have met.  Fantastic fun for anyone, invaluable for a writer.

And my find from the sale - besides those books, a portable exerciser for abs.  And if I don't use it - it's too small to hang clothes on!

Any finds in your day?

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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