Monday, April 6, 2009

The yard sale lasted for 1/2 a bloody mary

Sunday was our Big Yard Sale. It was raining.

I got everything up in the screened-in porch. It was crowded - but I knew that I just needed a few minutes to "merchandise" everything, and I'd be all set.

My girlfriend showed up with her 3 kids, and Easter Basket fillings - because we have a small side business putting together party favors, gift baskets, and gift bags for kids and we hoped to sell some Easter Baskets at the sale. The basket stuff didn't fit on the screen porch, so I piled it outside. I'd deal with that later.

Our neighbor arrived up with a bloody mary for me. Heaven. Big slug of tomato goodness and I was ready to get organized. I turned to go into the screen porch and deal with the piles of yard sale stuff. Then our neighbor's wife (another girlfriend of mine) and daughter came up the stairs. The deck was now very crowded. 5 kids were inside the house shrieking. The dog was running up and down the porch stairs. My girlfriends and I were sitting on the steps talking. My neighbor was reading to his daughter. Piles of crap are jammed into the screen porch, and the outside deck is littered with boxes and bags of uncertain origin and contents. I am ignoring all of it.

2 customers walk up the stairs. Yard sale regulars. I recognize them right away, and tell them I'm not ready yet, hoping they will leave. The dog sticks his nose in their butts. They literally run back down the stairs and jump in their car. Coincidentally, the man is the same one who took a dump in my bathroom during the last yard sale. (I am not even joking. It was the same weird guy with the frizzy hair and the too-short pants, with the strange girlfriend.) If there is anyone that deserved to have my dog's wet nose jammed up his ass at 8am, it was this clown.

More bloody mary is consumed. I am still not organizing the crap in the screen porch.

Sami is trying to put out signs, and is attaching them to cars that don't belong to us. No, I don't know why. Yes, I agree, it doesn't make ANY sense. I ask him to go put signs out on the main road. He leaves in the truck, with plywood signs and a hammer.

More customers arrive, and in short order buy almost all the good stuff.
For $6.00.

My girlfriend is browsing - and spends another $5. Now anything worthwhile is gone. We're left with some old clothes, a TV, and a bunch of tote bags and toys.

Sami comes back. He parks the car and gets out. I am now a teensy bit woozy from the bloody mary. I tell him we have to close up shop, that I have sold all the good stuff and need a nap.

He asks if I am serious, and the look in my eyes (and maybe the slight swaying from side to side and slurred voice) assure him that I am, indeed, very serious about ending this yard sale. He gets in the car to go get the signs from the road.

I finish my bloody mary.

Everyone else leaves.

We pack up the back of the car with our crap to donate to the charity store, and make a pot of coffee. Fun times.

The end.

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