Last week was a turd pie with a chocolate center. Partially rewarding, but mostly a big fat pain. I spent all of last week collecting junk around the house. Toys, clothes, furniture, home decor, and basically anything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. Why? Because we were having a weekend yard sale. It was organized by the community, so the date was set. There was no turning back. Which was a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it forced me to get crap done, and a curse because it forced me to get crap done.
As soon as I started to shovel through the piles of rejected toys, garbage and old clothes in Jackson’s room I felt like I was drowning in an endless sea of miscellany. Hundreds of matchbox cars, thousands of lone socks, millions of solitary puzzle pieces, billions of broken parts, and zillions of pesky little Legos. Somehow the mess got bigger as I sorted through everything. But I stuck it out. 4 days and 4 garbage bags later, I had Jackson’s room done. With only one day before the yard sale and the entire house left to go, I buzzed around collecting random knickknacks and paddywhacks. The Hubster and I spent most of the night before the big day moving furniture into the garage. The big day rolled around and my garage looked like a hodgepodge of the most worthless and unrelated items ever to occupy one space. “Why yes, I’d like to buy those mini lampshades between the 20 year old Foreman Grill and the Jack-in-the-Box Elmo.”
I listed things on OfferUp and Craigslist to ensure selling bigger items for better prices, which worked out nicely because when they came to pick up their big items, they usually stayed and bought some little stuff too. People trickled through the neighborhood on Friday and Saturday morning and we sold quite a few things. In fact, we made about $600. Not too shabby for people paying you to take away your trash. Then again, it took me a week of hard work to make that money, so it wasn’t so worth it that I’m dying to do it again any time soon. And you might think that I couldn’t do it again any time soon because I sold all my stuff. If only that were true. Somehow there seems to be just as much junk in my garage as there was when we started, and my house is still a wreck from all the scavenging I did. There are still piles of random crap around the house that I have yet to tackle, still closets I have yet to explore, still furniture that looks so out of place it’s like the guy who showed up in his underwear to a black-tie party. Yeah, I’d probably have to do this yard sale thing 5 more times before a dent was even made in the overall appearance of my house.
The best thing that happened was when a woman decided to buy our old grill for $5. It might sound like a ridiculously low price, but this thing was dead. Burnt to a crisp. I mean large quantities of burnt crisps literally spilled out of the thing as we loaded into the back of her SUV. But the best part was that The Hubster had to unload a used toilet that she had purchased at another house so he could load up our dirty grill. Then he had to hug and lift the nasty toilet again to put it back in her car. See, it’s funny because The Hubster is a bit of a germ-a-phob, but his chivalry and generosity outweigh his OCD, luckily for me…and for the woman who drove away with a toilet in her front seat.
As far as the money goes, I was hoping to spend it on updating the house, but The Hubster’s birthday is coming up so…I’ll probably spend it on shoes for me.
