Yard Sale

This weekend is going to be busy. Normally, my definition of "busy" involves me sitting around a television set watching SEC Football or hanging around the quad in Tuscaloosa watching Alabama fans. But this Saturday, I'll be attending a baby shower in the afternoon (thank heavens for DVR) and I'll be investing my morning in helping with a yard sale.

The yard sale is going to be at my friend Bonnie's house, and this will be the second one I've participated with her in our twenty plus years of friendship. She is a seasoned yard saler, and is pretty ruthless about getting her "stuff" gone and at a decent price. At the end of the day, she will have rid herself of a ridiculous amount of items and will have made enough money for it to have been worth her time. She is a professional.

And then there's me. I will show up with a few scanty items which I will handily dispose of and make...I suspect...about $4.95. The veteran yard salers will smell blood in the water and will get me down from a dollar to a quarter on most everything. I will have spent all morning there, will be looking like I've run a half marathon, and will swear not to ever do it again. And for another ten years or so...I won't.

I have items in this house that I'd like to get rid of. The problem is, I comb through my items so often that I rarely get enough together to make it worth my while. I don't have any problem decluttering (except for my bedroom for some inexplicable reason). Anything that I could possibly eBay...has been eBayed. Anything that I could pass to someone who could use it (clothes, furniture, books) has already been passed. Most of the big, bulky items were unloaded at the church yard sale last April. So, although I could use some extra cash, I have no great expectations and am trying to focus on the fellowship, and on helping Bonnie get rid of her stuff. Because the latter totally needs to happen.

A few months ago, after months of begging (on my part), she finally allowed me to come in and help her deal with it. Now, we are getting to the final stage of that journey...expulsion of sixteen years of "I'll get to that later." I'm sure for the yard saler who knows a bargain when they see it, this is a treasure trove. Plus, I want to see her raise enough money to possibly join me on a trip to Europe next year. I'm already on a mission to start raising funds for that. My $4.95 will buy me a croissant, possibly. But I do have enough American Express "points" for the ticket right now. Which totally rocks.

I have been to numerous yard sales in my life and I rarely am able to find anything that I just have to bring home. It may be the fact that I am more a junk expeller than a junk aquirer by nature that throws off my mojo. I have no idea. I'm not prissy about it or anything. I just can't seem to find that needle in a haystack item that makes sorting through stuff in someone's front yard at 6 a.m. a good use of my time.

But today I will go through the house again and will probably find a load of things that need to go. I always do. And I'll still be up $4.95 for the day. So there's that.