It's 6:00 a.m. It's that time in the morning when the mist makes everything cold while promising a roasting hot day. We are laying out my mother's life-or rather her 'stuff' across the driveway and the neighbors lawn for a yard sale.
The hundreds of gifts she received over the years was artfully displayed on card tables. Christmas stuff over here. 57+ coffee mugs over there.
Every curtain and piece of linen our family had since before I was born was laid out on tarps or organized in colorfully labelled boxes.
The 20 or so glass boxes for holding the piles of doo-dads from around her house were lined up. Beside the doo-dads was the mountain of stationary she never opened or used.
Embroidery, crochet, and sewing 'notions' of which I have no notion, were set out. Some lady bought the white sewing box, not because she sewed, rather she worked at the company that designed and made the boxes in the '60s.
By 6:30 the boys had wrangled the 10 ton furniture into a pseudo display on the corner of the street. By 6:32 "Crazy Legs" was making an offer on most of the furniture.
By 6:33 some lady was riffling through the jewelry. She told me what she was paying for some wooden eggs. I didn't even look at the price, she was just too scary to contend with.
By 8:00 a.m. we had raked in $132. Yep. $132. Did I mention the sale wasn't supposed to start UNTIL 8:00 a.m. Oy.
The day was marked by stretches of boredom followed by long minutes of people wheeling and dealing on stuff we didn't want and they didn't really need. By 2:00 we sold everything at 'half off' the already unbelievably low price of-50 cents.
We packed what was left, about 1/3 of what was laid out, and carted it to Goodwill. We left with a receipt indicating we had given 6 bags of clothes, 7 pieces of furniture and 14 bags of home goods.
Two truck loads of stuff, a life of 62 years and all we were left with was a receipt.
Today, sunburned and exhausted, we are moving slow. Only the kids are in their normal speed, buzzing around us. We have a yard sale hangover.
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