PHEW!

It's over. Hours and hours of sitting in a hot garage (I made Joe do it...heheheh) and haggling with people over prices with no number on the left side of the decimal point is OVER! We made it through the garage sale and we're only left with a small pile of unsold stuff that I will gladly call the nearest charitable group so they can toodle on over and get it. We didn't do too bad...considering it was Oktoberfest weekend and there were no less than 30 or 40 other garage sales in town. You think I'm kidding? I'm telling you, the amount of stuff on card tables in front yards could have been seen from SPACE! Every street, signs, balloons, piles of stuff. So...I was happy there were so many people with so much time on their hands to go to every one they encountered. Me...I wouldn't have gone to ONE. Not even MINE if I hadn't lived here! But yesterday we counted up all the cash and pronounced it a certified success. My mother suggested that we do it again next year and I told her I'd rather slam my head in a car door. She's already got stuff she's going to send down....thank God I work for a neurosurgeon.

So the lighted Oktoberfest parade was good. I had great glow bracelets filled with nuclear pink, green, orange and blue goo that glows after you snap the bracelet and shake it. I say I buy them for Emma, but they are really for ME because I think they are so freaking cool. I wore several. Emma's kept falling off, so I wore hers too. She was pelted with candy and I don't think she really understood why the air was filled with Frootsie Rolls and Dum-Dums, but she went along with it and scuttled around like the other kids picking up candy from the streets. We went up town to the carnival afterwards and waited in line with 2 million...okay it was maybe 12..people for tickets to rides...really it was very crowded. I got her onto the merry-go-round and she was all grins until that horse started moving...about half way through she turned to me and said...with a green face.."This needs to stop NOW". I could see that pukage was around the corner. I pointed to another little girl she knew and said "LOOK! Lauren is having FUN". Emma looked doubtfully at Lauren, giggled a little and then gave me that green look again. I kept telling her the horses were slowing down (they weren't...and it was the fastest damn merry go round I've ever BEEN on). Finally, wonderfully, the ride came to an end. Another parent with a grey face looked over at me and said "man...that was LONG". SO..on to the pick a duck game...won two unicorns...one purple, one blue...all was well in her world. Glow bracelets, puking averted, cheap stuffed toys, mommy on one side, daddy on the other...life was perfect.

Kinda freaked out!

So after not sleeping most of the night, the morning of the garage sale dawned bright and clear. We were out in the garage at 6:45 putting junk...I mean valuable treasure out on the driveway (closer to the curb for trash pickup if it doesn't sell). My dad brought down two carloads of stuff they are getting rid of and here's the sweet part....(sings) I get to keep the MONey! I was feeling ABYSMAL when I got up this morning. Can't say woke up because I didn't sleep. I mean we're talking I felt like GRIM DEATH. I have this cold, I started taking a new medication yesterday and it makes me not want to eat. YUCK. So my cousin and best friend in the entire universe and possibly other universes, called me this morning. She recently acheived her Reiki II status. If you're not familiar, Reiki is a healing art where the hands are used to channel energy to the person you're treating (I'm sure she'll call me and correct what I've written...) Any way she called this morning from "Packing for Camping Hell" to see how things were in "Oh My God Garage Sale Hell". She says "oh...I sent you a Reiki treatment about 7:30. You're going to feel better soon." I'm all for feeling better! So we chatted a little and hung up and I kept puttering around at the sale and I STARTED TO FEEL BETTER! My nose stopped running, my stomach settled down and I felt hungry which I haven't felt in days! I'm so freaked out.

We're doing okay with the garage sale...I think our prices are a bit low but I just want the stuff GONE GONE GONE GONE. Poor Peaches. She is so stressed and has been barking non stop and actually had to submit to being carried around so shoppers could pat her and bask in her glory. She is now passed out flat in the love seat. It's hell to be the star of the garage sale.

The germs are winning.

I have been fighting a cold for several days and now I've drifted into that land of mind-numbing-nose-running-Toyota-on-my-head-fatigue from which there is no return except on the Nyquil train. Sadly....I seem to have a one way ticket to germ land because tomorrow morning I have to be up early for the GARAGE SALE. I'm sure by 10 a m, after I'm asked by the umpteenth person "will you take ten cents for this?", I'll be handing out fifty dollar bills and saying "NO ...now just take this and GET OUT." Which will soon make me the most popular garage sale on the block and thus deepen my agony by bringing more freaks to my house. I swear...this cold stayed at bay all week and now...on the eve of destruction (read as: Garage Sale Eve)...the germs are turning up their booger machines and I can't move my head without dripping something unspeakable on my shirt. NOR can I eat...which I always find a drag. I have no appetite..which is a SURE sign that I'm sick because I can always find reason to eat...even if it's only to keep my teeth in practice. Usually my stomach has nothing to do with eating...my mouth is fully in charge of that project. Again..as usual...I digress. So...I'm cranky about the garage sale to begin with (I just want it all to go away and find a pile of money where it used to be)...and now I'm boogery and cranky....and probably contagious to boot. Buy this stuff I don't want and get anthrax FREE! Stop on in! I'm tired and not only is there the garage sale to contend with...but also ballet and the village Oktoberfest which is complete with a lighted parade (theme this year...Autumn Splendor!). We dig the light parade because...well..there are LIGHTS on everything...kids, floats, cars, dogs, horses...all covered with tiny Christmas lights powered by generators and battery packs. The highlight for me is the Shriner's wearing their fez's and riding go-cart camels...there's nothing better than 18 guys over age 60 dressed as Shriner's, fez tassels blowing in the wind, riding in different formations on fiberglass camels mounted on go-carts. I'm CONVINCED every year that there will be a big camel calamity...but the guys practice...I've seen them in the fairgrounds parking lot practicing their high speed camel figure eights. Unparalleled camel driving. There's also lots of candy throwing...best to bring an empty grocery bag...because you can't have too many pieces of dental work altering Laffy Taffy and Frootsie Rolls. I also get my supply of religious and political propaganda for the year and some free pencils. Who doesn't love free pencils?

By Sunday morning when it's time to take Emma to Sunday school and I go to church, I'll be a scaly nosed, bleary eyed, continually contagious, booger producing nightmare. But the garage sale will be behind me and Sunday night if it's not sold, it's either going to Amvets or to the curb for the trash pickers. I've put Joe in charge of the selling of things with the instructions of "TAKE WHATEVER THEY OFFER"..unless it's a free puppy or another child. We accept cash, cash and cash...oh and if they come and don't buy anything? I blow my nose and then make sure I shake their hand before they leave. See...now if they would have just bought something how much happier this would have ended?

Scene from a garage sale set up....

"What price should I put on this?"

"What is it?"

"Um...I'm not sure"

"All 'not sure's' are a buck"

Garage Sale's are the worst kind of hell

We've been planning on having a garage sale for the past 3 three years...no four...no three...I have no idea it's been so long and we've said THIS TIME WE'RE DOING IT so many times that I've lost count. It's not deciding what to sell, it's the organizing of the junk that we don't want (that we're certain someone else does) that always gets us all bogged down. This weekend is the community Oktoberfest (translated "drink beer in a tent uptown") and there are town wide garage sales. THIS TIME WE'RE DOING IT.

So a few weeks ago, in an effort to start getting ready, Joe got all the stuff down from the garage attic and unceremoniously dumped it in the second bay of our two car garage. It's like Mount Junkmore. It's been leering at us from that side of the garage since then. I swear it moves on it's own.

me: "did you move that Operation game?"
Greg: "no...it's over on the far side of the pile"
me" "no, it's sitting by the back door...I think it's making it's way back to the house"

Joe started organizing it Sunday. I was still in my sling and who can organize one handedly, I ASK YOU? He didn't get far before he came into the house, soaked with sweat and covered with baby clothes that he'd been sorting and said..."lets go for a ride or something, I need to get away from this". Hasn't been touched since.

Now it doesn't have to look like Neiman Marcus out there...but I would like the stuff at least organized into piles that people don't have to climb. You know..toys together...baby stuff together. Then I'm going to play that subliminal stuff that Target plays...."BUY MORE SHIT!" Works on me every time! (see 700 Stickers entry)

Oh...and did I mention the free dog with purchase sale?