Sep 19, 2012 4 min read

As of this writing, our two-car garage is still full of stuff.

It’s just stored in a more orderly fashion.

Why?

My lovely wife had a yard sale. On one of the hottest, muggiest, most insect-ridden days of the year, making it just that much more of a chore and challenge.

However, this was to be the Godzilla of yard sales, the biggest, the most expansive, the pull-out-all-the-stops sale. “Everything must go,” my wife said.

Enlisting one of her friends and Kendra, our now 20-something adopted granddaughter, the work began about midweek before the sale date. The trio hauled everything out of the garage and into the driveway. There, they sorted it, cleaned it and then created display areas in the garage, filling them with all kinds of glassware, decorative items, wicker baskets, kitchen utensils, furniture, books, lamps, antiques, etc., a collection that was decades in the making. Some of the stuff I had never seen before. Much of it I had been moving out of my way to get to something useful for the past several years.

The crew prepared everything right up to the morning of the sale.

Then the fun really began.

We have attempted to rid ourselves of excess stuff several times in the years we have been married. We have ventured out to area flea markets, dragging boxes of junk … er … very worthwhile things out of the car only to return home at the end of the day with most of it in tow.

We have also had sales at our home, something that to me is about as much fun as having a tooth drilled without anesthetic.

Each time we made a few bucks, and each time we still had tons of stuff that went back into the garage or was donated to some local charity.

Of course, the situation worsened when my 88-year-old mother moved in with us two years ago. Her stuff joined all of our stuff in the garage. That really did it, filling the one spot where we could park a car.

I wasn’t holding out much hope for this latest attempt to de-junk our garage, a two-car bay that hasn’t contained a car in three years. That’s how jam-packed it has been.

I tried to stay out of this latest yard-sale venture, making myself scarce — until the day of the sale. I was drafted because some of the things for sale were mine, and my wife couldn’t stand the idea of me relaxing in the house while she and her cohorts were sweltering in the heat.

Fortunately, she had pity on me as I freely perspired, allowing me to take breaks inside the air-conditioned house.

I get a real kick out of people who frequent yard sales. Ours was to start at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. We had customers as early as 8 a.m. and probably had sold most of what would be sold by 9 a.m. People trickled along for the rest of the day, buying bits and pieces, so, by the time the sale ended, our inventory still didn’t look very depleted.

One of my wife’s friends knew someone who buys leftovers from yard sales to resell at local flea markets. So, we unloaded another bunch of stuff.

In the end my wife made a few bucks. Of course she decided to pay her helpers, then there was the cost of the newspaper advertisement and the supplies (price stickers, bug balm, etc.). All that took a big chunk out of her proceeds.

Was it worth it?

Ask my wife that question. I’d be interested in her answer. Anyone for a root canal without anesthetic?

Have a good day.

James Pletcher Jr. is HeraldStandard.com business editor. He can be reached at 724-439-7571 or by email at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.