Sale Away With Me
by Mary Mendoza

More fun than eating a bowl of Ballard lutefisk swimming in melted butter, more thrilling than racing a hydroplane on Lake Washington, and guaranteed to raise cholesterol levels but very little cash, is our family’s end-of-summer garage sale.

The sale, which my mother, my sister and I host every year, requires brilliant planning and execution. Calm heads must prevail. Organization is essential. Children must be cajoled into submission, husbands promised vast riches. The media must be alerted.

None of this happens, of course. It’s always utter bedlam. When it’s all over, with our feet elevated to relieve the swelling and our bellies bloated with two days worth of take-out meals, we ask ourselves why we go through the agony. After we paid for signs, advertising, balloons and fast food we made $32.15.

And we can always depend on the weather. It’s either 101 degrees in the shade or we have a freak hailstorm.

The reasons for having the sale are different for each of us. Mother looks on it as a public service. We’re spreading our stuff around like manure on a flowerbed. She loves the look of delight on the face of the 95-pound lady who finds a size 3X shirt and the guy who discovers an 1884 chemistry book and a cracked vase for 50 cents.

Sister loves getting rid of all the stuff people have given her over the last year that she hates. An electronic lettuce dryer. A jumbo-sized orange chenille bathrobe. A set of 18 Taiwanese jam jars with matching spoons.

I love our sale for one reason. For two blissful days I don’t have to cook.

Every year we feature something outstanding. Last year we had some stunning jewelry a friend sent us from Arizona.

There was a strand of golf ball-sized faux pearls with a broken clasp, a fabulous Aurora-Borealis colored necklace in genuine plastic, a multi-strand fake jade choker with matching clip earrings, bronze-tone sweater clasps in the shape of what we first thought were dead leaves but later identified as orchids or maybe geraniums.

The showpiece of the collection was a 12-inch pink metal daisy pin, circa 1968, that also doubled as a weapon.

At first these exquisite pieces didn’t sell. As the morning wore on and no one had even glanced at them, Sister got desperate. She ordered Mother and me to model the jewelry. I don’t know if people felt sorry for us or if they were blinded by all that beauty, but by noon every piece had sold. Sister’s an expert at garage sales. She uses clever marketing strategies. She’ll label a fringed hippie dress, “Once worn by Cher,” and a 1950s toaster as “Almost antique.” “Compare our prices to Kmart,” another sign declares.

The yard sale provokes separation anxiety in our men folk. “You’re not selling that shirt! That’s an Arnie Palmer from Sears!” my husband yelled. “This is an old man’s shirt. Give it up!” I said. “Let’s talk about our garage full of junk–all of it yours. It’s time to make a fresh start. Let’s move on with our lives,” I said piously.

“My junk! What about all those boxes of yours? The seven shelves of romance novels, the baby clothes, the chipped china?” he said. I glared at him. He stormed out to the garage and after five hours, emerged with an oily object with broken knobs.

“This is all I found,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “You were gone so long I thought you finally decided to install that attic insulation!” I said with disgust, grabbing the thing away from him. “What is this anyway?”

“It’s a calibrated transforming responder.”

“I thought so. How much do you want for it?” “Don’t take less than ten bucks. I really hate to part with it,” he said.

I forgot what he told me and sold the thing for $3. He made me pay him the $7. Our eldest son waits until the first early birds arrive at 7 a.m. to add his treasures to the sale. He always comes up with weird things and then leaves town for the next 48 hours. I’m left to demonstrate how some screwball electronic gadget works or try to unload a dilapidated deep-sea diving suit.

Mother gets misty-eyed if she finds something Sister sneaked into the sale. “How can you part with this? Your Great Aunt Lizzie embroidered this right before Uncle Burl was gored by that bull!” she says, picking up a tattered piece of linen.

“Then you keep it Mother,” Sister sighs. “No, dear, I want you to have the money,” she says bravely. It’s priced 25 cents.

For two days in August we’re drawn closer together as a family. Our garage sale is really a lot of fun. Really.

Reprinted From: The Adventures of Madcap Mary. A collection of humorous stories By Mary Mendoza

“The Adventures of Madcap Mary” is a collection of humorous stories by zany home decorator, self-proclaimed airhead and Udder Nonsense author Mary Mendoza. Come along on this roller coaster ride of mishaps and merriment as Madcap wrestles the perplexities of feng shui, copes with a curtain crisis, overcomes the “Dangers of Decorating,” and confronts a psychotic typewriter in “Rosary Beads and Raisins.”

To order send $4.95 to: M. Mendoza, 515 S. Washington Ave., Centralia, WA 98531 or call 877-775-0093. Please include your mailing address and phone number. For more information, check out her fabulous Web site at madcapmary.com.

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