Tell Me A Tale

A year ago my sister-in-law and I sat in my garage, sipping hot cups of tea. It was an exceptionally cold and rainy day. We looked at each other and said, "Never again." We were wrapping up a two-day garage sale and, despite our sales being very good, we knew how much work went into sorting, setting up and worst of all, cleaning up.

Well, I guess neither of us are able to learn because we were back in our garage again last weekend, manning our trusty old card table with a cash box in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. Our makeshift display tables were crammed with treasures and, dare I say it, lots of junk. Our prices were all about sell, sell, sell. And we were not opposed to giving things away free. I had a chair that I would have paid someone to haul off but I got lucky when a lady purchased it without even sitting in it. Maybe it was for her cats.

My favorite part of garage sales has nothing to do with selling wares, however. It is all about the people and their stories. There was the hard-working young man who bought my husband's old pickaxe. I told him not to use it that day because it was Saturday and he should take a break. He laughed and replied, "No. Today is my day off but I'll be ready to use it on Monday morning." A darling young girl purchased a little hole-puncher because she likes to do crafts and one of her projects was making little hearts to sell as a fundraiser for Ukraine. An older lady stopped by and spent time just staring at a table we had for sale. She said that it looked just like the table she had when she was growing up and she could imagine herself there again enjoying meals, playing board games and working on homework. I told her she could come back again if she still had some homework she wanted to finish. She laughed and said that ship had already sailed.

One of my favorite stories came from a soft-spoken guy who was interested in purchasing an old flutophone/recorder. I mentioned that years ago the recorder was a required instrument for fourth-graders. His eyes lit up and he said, "One of my favorite teachers was my fourth grade teacher, Mrs Hant. She did one of the greatest things for us. After lunch and noon recess she always read books to us. That was my favorite part of the day." I asked him if he remembered the books she read. He immediately replied, "Yes, she read the whole Laura Ingalls Wilder series. I couldn't wait for each new book." I told him I was a former fourth grade teacher and nothing made my heart sing more than hearing him share with me the power of a good book. It solidified within me the belief that reading to kids (or adults!) is time well spent.

Soon enough, our heavy-laden tables became sparse enough that we knew it was time to grab our boxes and bins and deal with the detritus of another sale. Some things were destined for the second-hand store. Other items went where they probably should have gone in the first place, the trash bin. And a few things went in the keep-for-now pile. As my sister-in-law and I assessed the empty garage we looked at each other and I said, "Next year?"