Garage Sale Woes

This is for my friend Melanie and all of those other #garagesale warriors who have  spent the last month sorting, laundering, disinfecting and pricing. Carry on brave soldiers...carry on.

Today is our village garage sale. I hate garage sales. I neither like shopping or selling. I am always certain that my purchase was made driven by some primordial urge to get one over on my fellow man. It matters not that they indeed are the one's who set the asking price but in order for me to buy I must believe that they have simply overlooked the value of a small, slightly chipped, turban shrouded figurine with an "Occupied Japan" stamp on the bottom. Not that I would know the value of a small, slightly chipped...well, you get the idea. Mind you, I have never found anything at a garage sale, flea market or pawn shop that came close to resembling a cash cow. I know some people do. For instance, just recently some guy found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence at a second hand shop, paid five dollars for it, it's worth millions. That will never happen to me for two reasons; I have no idea what I am looking for and I refuse to pay five dollars for anything used!
I also hate being the seller. I never know what to ask and I am always certain it's not enough or it's too much. I don't know how to bargain effectively and quite frankly if someone just showed up and hauled it all away, I would be happy. But that, my friends, is not how the game is played.
I sit here surrounded by stuffed animals, dolls and odds and ends that my husband hauled home. He initially suggested that I sell them on e-bay. He was certain that cabbage patch dolls, beanie babies and a talking Alf would most likely make me enough money to retire on. He, of course, has never seen e-bay. I tried to sell a couple of things on the highly touted site and, quite frankly, it was a lot of work. I explained to him that each item had to be photographed in a flattering light and position, up-loaded, priced and then, if you were fortunate enough for someone to give you $2.00 for a "brown horse with yellow mane" beanie baby, you then had to package it and ship it. So when the village garage sale was announced, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to unload the tacky treasure that had taken up residence in my living room.
We arrived early, set up our tables and distributed our mostly beanie stuffed wares. A beautiful, spring day. Traffic began steadily flowing past approximately an hour later. Cars, trucks, SUV's, new and old cruising, slowing....not stopping.
Now, here is the truly surreal part, I begin to take it personally. I am angered that they don't even have the common courtesy to stop and dicker with me. How do they know that my stuff isn't worth looking at? How dare they assume that there isn't something on one of the two tables or the cracked slab concrete sidewalk that they don't need! if anyone of them was e-bay savvy they could give me fifty cents each for the beanie babies, sell them for two dollars and make quite a little profit! But that's okay...What are you looking at Grandma...either buy something or just keep moving!
Two little girls come by on tricycles and I tell them each to choose a doll to take home and love. Within thirty minutes there are, of course, a gaggle of little girls standing before me and, of course, each leaves with the free doll or stuffed animal of their choice because that's the kind of hard bargain drivers we are at this table.
Don't get me wrong. I understand. Hope springs eternal. One never knows when one might just come across, well hidden among the beanie babies and the hand woven multi-colored pot holders that Abby made at summer camp three years ago, an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Or maybe at a time when milk is $3.00 a gallon and it took $20.00 dollars worth of gas just to get here, a stack of slightly worn, $.50 each t-shirts just to get the kids through the summer, might just be as rewarding.

Evening Rose

EVENING ROSE

I recently told my dad about a situation that had upset me. No, angered me. "I'll think I'll just quit!" My dad's sage advice was "Don't go cutting off your nose to spite your face!" 
"I won't Dad." Funny thing, language. Colloquialisms. We all have them. My Dad is full of them passed on generationally. For instance, when I told my dad I was going to be paid for my writing, "Not much, Dad, but..." My Dad's reply, "Well, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye!" and judging from the scar on my father's cheek just below is left eye I suspect he knows of what he speaks.

Communication. It is a wonderful, maddening, confusing thing.

After a particularly frustrating conversation pock-marked with misunderstandings between myself and the parent of a student one late afternoon, I went home feeling a little down. I decided that a cheap glass of wine and a bubble bath might be "just the thing." I don't normally take bubble baths. A healthy dose of adult ADD doesn't generally allow for such a leisurely indulgence (waste of time). I searched through the back of the bathroom towel cabinet and found an old bottle of Evening rose foaming bubble bath. I blew the dust off of the lid and poured. I perched on the edge of the tub and watched the bubbles multiply and float. I entered gingerly and sank slowly. I closed my eyes and listened as James told me how he had returned to Carolina in his mind again and breathed deeply. Inhale red rose. Exhale blue mood. Inhale red rose. Exhale blue mood. I was surprised at how much I liked the fragrance. I had not really been around roses much other than the yearly trip to the botanical gardens or the floral section of my local Wal Mart. my mother had been allergic to roses so carnations were the flower of our house. Red tipped and, in later years, presented from an adoring grandson. I began to think about my mother. When she was twenty nine and we four, my two brothers, myself and my sister were small, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In the sixties this was a certain death sentence. We were not allowed to visit her in her hospital room but rather my father or grandparents would slowly drive past the hospital and point to the window beyond which she lay fighting. Then I remember quite vividly the afternoon that my father returned home with a single red rose my mother had sent for me to press in my bible.I did not understand why and it was not until years later that I realized the rose was to be a remembrance.

With the scent of Evening Rose still wafting about my damp hair and filling my nostrils, I suddenly opened my eyes, 'A single red rose." But wait a minute. That makes no sense. Why would my mother, who was incredibly allergic to roses, have had them in her hospital room and then....I realize. She wasn't. My mother was not allergic to roses. She didn't like having roses around because they smelled to her of pain and fear and baited breath death. It was easier to say "No thank you, I am allergic" to roses then to relate the tale of the battle she had waged on the fourth floor of a hospital. Much easier to say "No thanks." to a rose being offered then to explain that when death came to call that day in that tiny dark room she said "No thank you. Not today." 

I cry for a bit and I smile for a bit. Amazed that it took be forty years to figure it out and grateful for a husband who didn't pay attention when I said years ago "If you are going to buy me any body products for my birthday, don't get rose scented. I don't like the smell."

Epiphanies come in small doses and in strange places and occasionally from the bubbles brought forth from a dime store bottle of Evening Rose.

Communication. Language. It's amazing we understand each other at all. For instance, isn't it funny how a simple phrase like "Stop and smell the roses" can mean something so entirely different to each of us.