Come Sale Away

My children have been gone at their Grandma and Grandpa's since Wednesday afternoon.
And because I don't like to get too opinionated in my blog...ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...........................
I will only say this: Don't EVER fucking tell me you are busy if you don't have kids.
Because you're not.
You are doing exactly what you want to do.
So come back when you have a kid or two and then we will talk about busy.

That being said, I am ready for Keegan and Maren to come home tomorrow. The floor is crumb-free, the windows aren't finger-print streaked and all of the toys are in their bins.  It's like a museum. Or do I mean mausoleum?  Either one, it's too quiet. I love being busy with my kids even when I want to pluck my eyelashes out one by one because that would be less painful than listening to Maren scream every time her brother looks at her.
"SCREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAM."
"Don't look at your sister! For the five hundredth (g-d damned) time! She doesn't want you to look at her."
I miss my kids.

Rebecca and I decided to have a garage sale about four months ago.  I am sure this decision was made while I was drinking heavily at her house or something.
Four months later, in the middle of the hot summer...pregnant and wine-less...it was a little more daunting than originally planned.
When it comes to "stuff," Rebecca and I are total opposites.  We are NOT opposites about a lot of things and this is why I love her so much.  But one of the things I do value about our friendship is that there are places where we don't agree or do things the same.  I love her perspective. I love her "with-it-ness".  I don't have a lot of close friends. Partly by choice, I have said before, but the ones I do have I really cherish and I feel like she and I have a stronger bond because of our differences and mainly our sameness and probably because of all of her stuff....
When she showed up with 50 bins of garage sale items, I really didn't bat an eye.
I had a complete anxiety attack, but my eyes were fine.
I am a thrower.
Rebecca is a saver.
She has a story and a memory for EVERY single piece of her children's clothing. "This is from that Tuesday in August in '08 when Vivian had a juice and then we decided that we should go to the park, but it rained and then..."
 I honestly think it is a wonderful characteristic to have, but it makes me look like a totally unfeeling Mom when I can so easily stuff Keegan's favorite shirt into a donation bag, even if he did wear it everyday for two months because he loved skeletons so much and I should be thinking fondly of "the days of the skeletons" or whatever.

So it's Day 1: Opening Day.  8:15am  All 13 tables of clothes, shoes, toys, books, glassware and scrap booking paraphernalia is laid out and priced neatly.  SHOW US THE MONEY!  This is going to pay our mortgage this month!  (Not at 25 cents an item, but still, I could dream.)
Friendly Chatty Gramma Customer drops a glass measuring cup on the garage floor. Glass shatters everywhere and lodges in her granddaughter's flip-flopped foot.
Lord.  15 minutes in and already it's a cluster.
Gramma Customer asks one of US to take out shard of glass as she cannot see it well.
(She has Gramma eyes.)
I take one look at the blood spot on Granddaughter's heel and say, "Rebecca? Do you, uh, think you can get this?  I will just, uh, I'll, uh, get some band-aids." I bolt for the house, leaving her to perform surgery.
Yes, I realize this was completely wussy, but I couldn't take the crying and the blood and blech.. Thankfully, besides being a great saver, Rebecca is also a great surgeon.
Gramma is more upset about glass measuring cup than Granddaughter's foot, as she "had been looking all over for one like that." I didn't have the heart to tell her she could head straight over to WalMart and get one for $3.83...
Day 1 continued:   Woman Customer remarks on the heat of the day and then promptly says, "You know a lot of garage sales sell pop. You know, because their customers are hot or thirsty..you wouldn't happen to have a pop, would you?" She holds up 50 cents.
I don't know why I think this is so weird except that we had more customers like her than I would have guessed. People were "put out" because we didn't have any bags left, or they wanted pop, or one lady even asked if we were serving lunch at noon.  (Kidding)
Since when did garage sale customer's get so demanding?
You are buying someone else's used shit.  You can't just carry your two books and a "Two Spoiled Cats Live Here" wall hanging to your car?  Would you like me to carry YOU and your things to the car?  How about I just get your keys and fucking valet your mini-van for you...What is going on??
More than once Rebecca had to give me the "you are starting to lose it, pull it together, Psycho Pregnant Lady" look.
And then we have the Piece de Resistance. (Or however you say here's comes the biggest whopper of all..)
We sold a little girl's shoes.
Out from under her.
A darling little girl who was walking around barefoot
(MIND THE SHATTERED GLASS!!!!!!!).
(Oh, relax, I had swept it up already!!)
Cute little Mary Jane Crocs. I can still picture them.
"Lillianna, where are your shoes? We can't leave until you find your shoes and put them back on."
Her shoes?  Where could they be?  What did they look like?  Pink and blue Crocs?  Hmmmm...no idea...keep looking...still no sign of them? Well that's because we got $2.00 for them and they're leaving in that valeted mini-van...Yes, we valet at our garage sale.
Oh right this is about your little girl's shoes...
Shit balls.
1. What kind of people are we that we would sell her shoes?
2. What kind of mother lets her daughter walk around at a garage sale barefoot?
You decide who's worse. But don't tell me because I already feel like crap.

At the end of two full days of "No, I won't take a dollar for that, yes, I will take 50 cents for that" (because apparently now, garage sales are like Chinatown) we finished our sale.  The rule was that nothing would come back into the house that had gone out.
Will had put an ad on Craig's List and mentioned we had two old cats, free to a good home in the listing, but no one inquired, so I let them back in.  He is going to be sooooo disappointed. I am going to wait to see if he notices I sold all his koi. (Kidding)
The proudest moment: when Rebecca packed up her car with only TWO totes left over.
She donated almost everything that didn't sell.
Look people, this was a monumental moment.
Either my "throwing" rubbed off on her, or she was just so damned glad she didn't have to sit with twitchy pregnant friend anymore, she wanted out as fast as she could.
We have decided to try to make our garage sale an annual event. I say that now that we are done.  I wonder what I'll be saying next June.
I KNOW it won't be "Can I get you a soda while you shop?"
Ridiculous.