yard sales and birthdays

Here's a gimmick for a yard sale....advertise and then show up. Just put your ad in the paper: "Sat Oct 7, yard sale at 1313 Mockingbird Lane starting at 9am" or whatever. And then open up your garage and plunk your ass down in a lawn chair at 8:58am on the chosen day. All the pain in the ass stuff that makes having a yard sale such a bother? The sorting, the organizing, the pricing, the putting out of things on display tables?? Fuck it!! Don't do it!! Let the yard sale vultures do the grunt work for you!! You could just post a sign proclaiming: "Bienvenidos, motherf****ers!! Pick through my junk. Make me an offer." Gosh...I wonder if that would work??? The success of this scheme relies on one thing (and it's not the quality of your junk, as any type of yard sale, depends on that for its success) --the rabidness of your patrons. I bet if you lucked out and had some true yard sale ADDICTS swing by your casa, then they just might be down for it. Also, might there not be an added voyeuristic thrill to such a yard sale?? Now, if I was ever out cruising yard sales and hit upon one like that...well I wouldn't stay longer than 5 min tops. But then again, I'm no die-hard yard saler. I'm more of a yard sale dabbler, really.
Usually it's spring or summer when a young gal's fancy turns to yard sales. However, I was tasked tonight with sorting through crap I had stored in my parents' garage. That is what moved me to ponder such topics. I hate, HATE , HATE going through my old junk. So that's the sort of fantasy that sprang to mind-- rabid yard saleing scavengers arriving unexpectedly and spiriting all that stuff away. Another dream scenario-- dumping everything into a ginormo bonfire. But I don't know that that's quite legal. And in VT nowadays, well, your neighbor is quite apt to narc on you to the local po-po if you so much as burn a handful of newspaper in your backyard. Not only do I hate the manual labor part of sorting out my old stuff, but I also hate that it FORCES one to dwell on the past...the fleeting nature of time...all that deep stuff. Oy. It's like doing an archealogical dig to study yourself. I hate it!! Ok, and as if the chore was not horrid enough my Dad brings up this GINORMOUS tub of old clothes from the basement that he just presumes are all mine (some of them were). My job was already daunting enough with just the garage stuff to dig thru...now he was adding more from the basement??? Well I looked in the tub and said "Well, I can tell you that only some of that old clothing is mine, but I am NOT going to sort through it.. I don't want ANY of it. Anything of mine in there you can toss into the rag pile or bring to the thrift shop" 'Cause I could see at first glance that the most current thing in that box was from 1990 (at the very latest). So as I'm digging through my garage boxes I have to listen to my Dad sort through this tub of clothes. I am one who can sort in silence...for my father that is utterly impossible. He picks up everything, unfolds, and holds it up "What's this? What's this?" like he can't manage basic garment identification without everybody else's input. And then there's the running commentary-- "There must be a hundred dollars worth of sweaters in here!!" "Body Glove--oh this is a nice one--I bet Laura'd might like to keep this" (this is said sincerely. No hint of sarcasm, like you mighta expected) "Varnet Paris...I bet Laura got this when she went to France." (again, this is said in all seriousness). His obvious fave was the oft repeated "Probably worn once!!" or "Bet this was worn once and then thrown out". I was mightily vexed, but I was able to keep it suppressed.

So at the same time that I've got this growing weariness with my accumulated possessions I somehow have this contrary record spinning in the jukebox of my brain. And insanely enough, the name of this record is "STUFF I WANT FOR MY BIRTHDAY" Sheeeesh...as if I need more stuff. I got stuff coming out the hooooHA. But I enjoy b-day gifts. And as I've pointed out before, I'm not going to enjoy birthdays (nor birthday related spoils) for too much longer. So here's the website of LUSH...a company I discovered while on vaca in Canada. They have a shop in the Byward Market region of Ottawa. Very rad stuff. I bought a lip balm which I'm not overly crazy about but I bought Karma fragrance dusting powder, which is nice, and this solid shampoo puck that I love, LOVE, LOVE!! The link, by the way, goes right to my wish list (happy shopping, amigos!)!!!