One Man's Junk...

As a child, I can remember my grandparents having a yardsale every weekend (ok, it wasn't literally every weekend, but as a kid it seemed that way). And it always seemed to be very cold, and extremely early. I recall my brother, Ron, and I trying our best to entertain ourselves. One year, we had buttons that we wore on the front of our jackets that said "Ask me". Where we got them I don't remember, but people began to ask us "what does the button mean?" That was just the response we were looking for. Our answer was short, but precise; "we are selling hot chocolate. Want a cup?" Why should the adults be the only ones to make a little cash. It was these early days of entrepreneur-like adventures that I drew from this morning.

My wife and I rose up early this morning, 5:00am, and added a couple of more nails to the already staple and nail ridden telephone poles around town as we hung signs urging people to come give us money for the same stuff they will probably be selling in a yard sale next month (I know that was a run-on sentence, but it sounded better in one breath). We put our junk on tables in our driveway, and were shocked and amazed as people actually began showing up. We could barely get stuff on the table before people were snatching it off. This lasted for about 15 minutes, and then the crowd of 8 people dissipated. We were relieved that we now had time to display the rest of our forgotten, dust-covered treasures. Finally, we were prepared for the crowds. So, we waited, and waited, and then waited some more. After an hour and a half, a car pulled up. Two ladies got out, made a few humorous remarks about our stuff, and then left with empty arms. I felt like screaming. "What? Why don't you want our trash. Wait. Come back. I'll pay you to take it from us."

I finally just started piling junk into our trash can...where it belonged. I'm not moving all of this to California, only to store it away in an attic somewhere just to pull it out again for this same early morning experience. 30 bucks. I don't see how that is worth the time and effort. In hindsight, perhaps I should have taken a page out of my early yardsale days and hustled some cups of hot chocolate.