Tag. You’re It

September 13, 2007

Filed in: The Home Front, The Middle Ages

UPDATE: As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, this weekend was transfigurative. Friday I was a girl who hated yard sales because she was an insecure snob. Tonight I am a woman who hates yard sales because they suck. Never again, dear readers. Never. Again.

Related: anbody interested in four stainless steel forks tied with a ribbon? A 10-gallon trash bag filled with yarn? a nice chunk of linoleum? a pair of Girbaud jeans from 1986? . . .

In a few days’ time I will participate in a ritual that millions and millions of Americans love but that I dread, disdain and despise.

I speak not of an uncomfortable medical test for those over 50, nor of a trip to the mall on the day after Thanksgiving, but of the all-hallowed yard sale. Also known as a tag sale. Garage sale. Attic sale. Junk. Moving. Whatevs.

The very phrase “yard sale” brings out some ugly, ugly traits in me that I’d rather not acknowledge. One: intense snobbism. Two: intense insecurity.

On the One hand, to me there is literally almost nothing worse than picking over tables of other people’s junk, despondently priced with tiny little stickers that fall off. When it’s low-end stuff, it’s depressing. When it’s high end, well, insert my standard (insufferable, judgmental) rant about rampant U.S. consumerism blah blah blah.

On the Two hand, what if I drag our crap out onto the lawn and nobody comes? Or they all come and nobody wants it? I’m afraid of being dissed by the very bargain hunters I admit to disdaining. I want them to love my junk, I want them to make me an offer, and then I want them to drive it away from my house. Is that so much to ask of an uncaring, pennywise public?

In our old neighborhood, the problem of accumulating goods was beautifully and simply solved. Two or three oldish guys used to cruise the neighborhoods very early on trash day and pick up any usable bits. It was recycling at its finest, and I passed along a ton of good things that way. 

Here in Swellville, though, we are low on the economic totem pole, and our used belongings are not worthy of median-income standards. Plus anybody driving any type of truck aimlessly up and down the pretty streets at dawn would be swiftly detained by the cops, who’re a bit underemployed in the having-to-deal-with-vicious-criminals department. (And God help them if any potential trash pickers are of a color other than Mayflower White.)

So now we’ve got a seven-year surfeit. I’ve been working like a dog day and night cleaning and assembling it all, and one way or another it’s all going out that door on Saturday. If you need me, I’ll be there, clutching my Dunkie’s coffee cup in terror.

Oh, and just so you know: the forecast is for rain.