The Yard Sale That Would Not Die

It all began on a sunny Friday morning with the arrival of Packrat Jr and her crew of twentysomething friends to man the yard sale. The sale was to help fund her graduate film studies. My husband, Packrat Sr, using his many connections, had been saving stuff for this all year. This was no ordinary yard sale: this was a one man flea market. The picture I posted was but one portion of the whole. The temperature rose to 103 degrees (according to the car). The sweat soaked our clothing, our heads, our bodies. The hordes descended. Then the rain came. Fortunately, it was not too bad, and we managed to cover up most things.

That evening, an all-time first, some miscreant in a little pickup attempted to steal the treadmill. If they could have moved it, the wheels were firmly planted in the grass, I might have let them take it. The wouldbe theft broke our hearts, since on a lesser scale, this is a yearly event around here. And no one had ever taken anything. It was the end of innocence.

On Saturday, we repeated the whole procedure, only this time it rained harder. On Sunday morning, some of the clothes were a little moist, but overall, we were in good shape, until the monsoon came that is. At this point, the moisture had wicked into everything. So this morning, I went into reclamation mode, sorting the dry stuff, bagging it, sending it off to Goodwill. Packrat Sr came home and informed me that he and his henchmen would take care of it tomorrow. Fortunately, he thought to call the nice Haitian family that had bought so much to offer them whatever they could take. They were in the midst of this when torrents of rain began to fall.

So now I am looking at day six of this debacle, hundreds of pounds of sodden designer clothing, fortunately only a few pieces of very nice, very wet furniture, and the treadmill bought on Saturday by an elderly Oriental man who never picked it up. I only have two words: never again.