Garage Sale

I hate garage sales. Let me repeat myself in case you didn't read me right. I HATE GARAGE SALES. So why, oh why am I having one?

Sigh. I got myself into it. I volunteered. I actually called my friend Melissa and asked her if she wanted to have one together. We had a garage sale, a very successful one mind you, a while back. A long while back. We found out we have some high quality crap. At least other people think so. Since Husband and I went on a cleaning-out-throwing-away frenzy and I knew she was getting ready to move, I thought maybe we should make some spending cash instead of donating the stuff and waiting for the deduction to show up on our taxes. There's the problem...I thought.

So we will be having a garage sale at Melissa's house this weekend. We were contemplating having it last weekend, but decided not to. And we were SO glad we didn't...it was freezing cold and pouring rain. We would've been miserable. Well, more miserable than we will already be.

Why do I despise garage sales so much? I don't really hate all garage sales - just ones I am having. I don't mind stopping by someone else's occasionally, especially if they have some interesting things. But when you have one yourself, there's sorting, pricing, setting up, getting up early (freakishly early), and the off-the-cuff addition and subtraction that happens way too early in the morning to even be funny. And I just find it difficult to sit outside with crap I've already decided to get rid of, hoping someone else things it's worth paying money for. And that's the only reason I can even manage to do it - the money.

Maybe I should be more motivated by the prospect of earning some extra cash, probably some pretty decent extra cash, for the junk I no longer want in my house. But I'm not. Sure, it will be nice to have. But we've already decided what to do with it - buy more crap. Yep. I desperately need new dish towels in the kitchen (We got married nearly 10 years ago and I'm still using wedding-gift dish towels. They're sad.) And I decided to sell the only full set of matching dishes I own, so they need to be replaced. Don't get too uptight - they're plastic. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of non-plastic dishes. But these are the only true full set of matching dishes I own. Well, at least for now. Maybe someone will buy them. And then I can go buy more. It's a vicious cycle.

So on Saturday as you have a leisurely morning watching cartoons and eating cereal with marshmallows on the couch in your PJ's, think of me. Melissa and I will be sitting in her garage, sleepy-eyed, calculators in hand, no makeup, hoping someone wants to pay money for our junk.