Garage Sale Day

All year long I pile up unwanted odds and ends in a corner of our basement where they sit until the big neighborhood garage sale day.

I'm pretty ruthless when it comes to clearing out clutter and getting rid of it. And, when something has been downgraded to the unwanted pile, it's very unlikely that it will ever make it back into the house.

The only survivors from this year's sale were a VCR with about a dozen VHS tapes, a Hoover Spin Sweep and my first 35mm camera.

Everything else that didn't sell was either thrown in as a freebie to our last-minute shoppers or dropped off at Goodwill.

We made $1,600 from the sale and it went directly in our savings account. Dave Ramsey would be so proud.

There were two highlights of the garage sale.

The first was the little boy from across the street. He kept coming over to buy Bruce's computer games. He'd root through the box of games and carefully select one he wished to purchase. Then, he'd hand me the games and ask if any of them had blood. I wasn't sure why he was asking so I asked if he wanted games with blood or games without blood. He said that his mother wouldn't let him play with games that had blood.

I checked the back of the game boxes and approved the games that were rated "E" for everyone. The games were priced $2 each, but Bruce gave the boy a 50% discount.

The last time he came over, he selected two "E" games and said, "I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to have to pay you with pennies." Then, he reached into the side pocket of his cargo pants and started piling up pennies on my check-out counter. I scooped up the pennies and gave them all back with a smile.

Later a grandmother with her three little grandsons stopped by and I directed the boys to the 5-cent box and told them they could each select one item and it would be free.

One selected a Hawaiian lei, one selected a baseball cap and the smallest boy, who was maybe two years old, selected a little squishy ball (the kind you squeeze when you're stressed). He walked over to me and said, "Thank You."

I was impressed with the boys' parents for teaching them good manners at such a young age. Unlike the parents of the kids that demand candy on Halloween. Most can't even be bothered to say "Trick or Treat", let alone "Thank You."