One Guy's Trash is Another Guy's Treasure...Or Some Such

There are three things I can count on to foul up a perfectly good Saturday; Bike Nazis, Jehovah's Witnesses and garage sales.  And I really dislike a garage sale.  I think that in the current economic climate many people are trying their luck at making a few bucks by shoving some of their house clutter out onto the driveway and selling it off at 25 cents a pop.  Try to drive or walk through the neighborhood on a bright, clear Saturday morning and you find the streets lined with the cars of bargain hunters trying to haggle some poor person out of their precious memories.  Of course, there will come the calls from the garage of the prospective proprietor to come and browse through the stuff they deemed unworthy to continue gracing their storage containers in hopes you will drop a few bucks on items you will then place in your own storage containers. Yeah, I really do dislike a garage sale.

So, Mrs. Muller had a garage sale today.  We spent last night dusting and cleaning nick-nacks, arguing over the value of items and slapping  price tags on them, and organizing the stuff on display tables.  My son and I moved the picnic table from the back yard to the front, which proved to be quite heavy.  It was water logged from a good rain we had received and, though we are both pretty strong, had to set it down a half dozen times before we were successful (I actually tried to move it by myself.  I managed to pick it up, but couldn't walk with it.  Sometimes I do silly things).  We organized and dusted the books we planned to sell, and with four avid readers in the house that proved to be a bunch of books (and before you criticize me for selling off books, you have to realize that a person simply isn't going to re-read James Patterson and John Sanford novels.  Once is enough).  We stacked and prepped and we were finally ready. Yay.

6:30 this morning we started lining the drive with our display tables and book shelves.  I plugged up a treadmill I was hoping to get rid of.  Like most exercise equipment it was used three times and then placed in the garage.  I was really hoping to get that thing out of there.  I placed signs at neighborhood intersections to entice prospective suckers our way.  Unfortunately for the ladies, my son and I had to work and couldn't stick around for all the sun and fun.  My poor ladies sat out there all morning, suffering the effects of all those green house gases and cow farts as the temperature and humidity soared (They're like dainty little flowers.  Poor things).

I got a call late morning informing me that things weren't going as we hoped.  There was traffic coming by, but obviously our stuff wasn't attracting any interest from the road.  The old adage that one guy's trash in another guy's treasure didn't seem to apply to our trash.  That was a bummer.  When all was said and done Mrs. Muller informed me she didn't even make enough money to cover the costs of the garage sale signs.  And that was a bummer, too.

Yeah, I really dislike garage sales.