the horrors of garage sale-ing

you know when at first you are really excited and upbeat about something, and then when you come upon it face to face, you back away and shrivel up? yeah. this is how garage sale-ing affects me.

so friday night, when the paper was brought up, courtesy of scary gary, i pounced on it at the first chance i got. i had the crazy whim to go garage sale-ing the next day. reminiscing back, i realized that i hadn't gone to a garage sale in nigh eight years. my nostalgia, unfortunately did not arrive with the requisite and remembered feelings that were coupled with the memory.

so armed with a battered newspaper listing all of the local garage sales, six highlighted with a big yellow box, i persuaded mother k to chauffeur me to all of my desired locations. she grudgingly agreed.

we headed down one street, then another, and then arrived at betty lane. the site of the first promising sale. as the car drove closer to the place, my temple began to ache, hands became clammy, and pulse reacted radically to a sudden "flight or fight" response. i crouched down in my seat and managed to painfully whisper out a "backup backup backup leave leave leave" to mother k, who promptly ignored my unexpected histrionics.

she ignored, parked, braked, and turned off the car. expecting me to unglue myself from the seat and leave my safe place. i finally made myself, and together we made our way to the scantily populated garage sale. and by scantily populated i mean scantily populated in people and items. i had nabbed a dud.

we forced ourselves to smile at the owners and provide the expected hello, and then we made ourselves take a quick and fleeting tour of the sale (remarking upon the slightly exorbitant prices of antique trunks and an old door) and then we made our escape.

afterwards, we laughed at the outrageousness that one garage sale can incur upon ones emotions, and then mother k rebuked me for unknowingly choosing a garage sale that had opened the previous day.

obviously, she said, there won't be anything good left. she was right.