My junk could be your junk

Garage sales are really something, aren’t they? For the buyer, it’s simple enough. Follow the posters and yard signs and look for the yard or driveway filled with stuff.

If you’re lucky, you might find what you didn’t know what you were looking for. You might find a hidden treasure, a memory, a great bargain.

But for the seller, it’s a whole other can of worms. The amount of prep that comes with setting up a garage sale is what no one tells you about. It usually starts with a deep clean, going through closets and bins and dressers until you get enough that you think, ‘I could get some money from this’.

So you start piles. Clothes, dishes, decor, books, DVDs, CDs, games, more books, hats, shoes, toys.

Then you have to pick a date and hope and pray and cross all your fingers that it doesn’t rain that day. Or snow. This is Indiana, after all. It’s not impossible.

Now you need tables to set all the stuff on. If you’re some lucky soul who has tables coming out their ears, props to you. If you haven’t had a sale in years, or ever, you may have to ask around and hope a friend or relative has some to spare. Otherwise the stuff will be spread out on blankets or the pavement and the customers will get a workout.

Then you open up shop and hope people see the neon signs and follow them to your driveway.

People handle everything, examine your stuff and wonder how and if they could make it theirs. Hours go by and, with any luck, your drive or garage start to hold less and less stuff.

But unless you’re reaaallllyyyy lucky, you’ll likely end up with some stuff that just didn’t make the cut. At that point, you make a decision: is this a sign to keep it or does it make its way to a Goodwill or a mission or something of the sort?

I always seem to find something at garage sales that I probably don’t need, but at those prices, it’s hard to say no. But I also have a hard time letting go to some things, so I have the not so great habit of grabbing things out of my own sale that I still want to keep. That way, my junk is still my junk.