There are very few things that can get my bride's motor running faster than one of her daily trips to the neighborhood Wally-World. One of them, however, is a good garage sale. I've seen her excitement level go from "normal", (which is way yonder higher than mine EVER gets), to "Off The Chart" just at the sight of a fair sized, well organized, neighborhood garage sale. She automatically shifts into a higher gear without even realizing it.
It must have something to do with the tables lined up holding several hundred nic-nacs, clothes hanging on a makeshift rack of some kind... and I'm talking LOTS of clothes, gently swaying in a morning breeze. We'll be driving down some street... any street... and as she carefully surveys the landscape ahead of us, she spots one 2 blocks ahead on the right!!!
She immediately perks up, she leans forward, straining against the seat belts, eyes fixed like a hawk, and she begins sounding the alarm... "Pull over!... Pull over!... There's a garage sale!" Usually before I can get stopped, safely parked out of the traffic, she's got her little hand on the door handle, seat belt unbuckled, purse carefully draped over one shoulder, telling me she'll be right back, all the while NEVER taking her eyes off the prize.
It's kind of amusing to me to watch her go. I usually sit there in the pickup and watch her as she evaluates the worth of the plunder. And I'm also amazed at how rapidly she can pick up and look at every single one of the available nic-nacs and look at every article of clothing being sold; and with one sharp glance, tell if it's the right size, if it will go with something she's already got, and whether or not it's priced too high. In a matter of minutes, she's looked at everything, picked out what she wants, plucked her $1.75 from her wallet, paid the seller, folded the clothing over her other arm and heads back to the pickup... with a huge smile on her face. It really IS fun to watch her do her garage sale thing.
As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, our own garage has been in danger of collapsing under it's own weight for quite a while. We had a little... and I DO mean little pathway we could walk through to get in or out of the garage. And a lot of what occupied space in our garage was strategically placed so when we had OUR garage sale, we could easily get to it, get it out, and get it ready to sell.
Last weekend the big day finally arrived. We purposed in our hearts that Saturday would be the day we finally get rid of a lot of the junk taking up space in our garage. Now I think I mentioned how much fun it was to watch Little Red go garage sale-ing, but that's nothing compared to watching her HAVE one. She spent 3 days out in the heat, in the garage, getting her stuff ready. Friday night, I went around and stapled up some signs in various places that would maximize our marketing effort. That means I stapled them to some telephone poles at busy intersections. Early Saturday morning we both woke up early... (it must have been the excitement), and got a good early jump on it. I got up at 5, gulped down a cup of coffee, jumped in the shower, gulped down another cup and then started dragging out and setting up some folding tables. I tied one end of a swing chain around the middle support between our garage doors and the other end to a metal glue clamp stuck in one of the holes in the bed of my pickup... Then I just drove until the chain got REAL tight... I mean REAL tight. And Voila... the clothes rack was completed. (Does the term, "Redneck" mean anything to you?) We started rolling, carrying, dragging, pushing, pulling, and bouncing stuff out of the garage to begin the merchandising of our wares. Sometime between 6 and 6:30... (it was STILL dark)... I'm still hauling stuff out of the garage and this guy drives up, gets out, and says, "You don't mind if I look around, do you?" I couldn't help but laugh... "Sure, go ahead", I said as I continued my task.
He had a similar anointing as my bride's except he wasn't NEARLY as fast as she is, because he pretty much looked at everything at least once, but it took him a little while. By a few minutes after 7 it was ON. Once the duties of the pack mule was over, I could just pretty much sit back and watch the show.
Not only was it entertaining to watch people as they browsed the stuff and made their selections, it was a great deal of fun to watch my Little Darlin do her thing. She never quit smiling, laughing, and having fun. She treated every person who came up like she'd known them all her life. When they'd come up wagging a small child, she would immediately go to her stash of small stuffed animals, select one and give it to the baby. People would buy something, ask about something else and she'd say, "Oh, you can just HAVE that".
It was non-stop from 6:30 to about 1:30 pm when we finally shut it down. I don't have any idea how much stuff we sold or gave away, but when we finished, we put the remainder in the back of my pickup and hauled it Goodwill. And the back of my pickup was NOT full, so I'm guessing we sold or gave away somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 4,000 lbs. And my little Sweetie did it all with a song in her heart and a smile on her lips. Last Saturday, she sort of put legs on the scripture, Philippians 2: 14, 15 which says: "Do everything without complaining and arguing so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people." And the reason I know she put legs on it, is because not one person walked up our driveway who wasn't shown the bright light of Christ living in the heart of one of his children.
And as amazing as all that was to see, what's even more amazing is realizing that my garage has a concrete floor in it. I haven't been able to see it in a long time, but it's a good solid concrete floor... amazing! Now if I can just find that old hammer... the one with the handle cracked... I know I saw it somewhere out there in the garage. I haven't used it in several years, but I NEED it today. You don't think it might have been put in the garage sale, do you?... Oh well... It's Just A Thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment