Of course, it had had a hideous 80's pastel abstract print in it then; I'd worked long and hard to remove all the staples and tiny nails that held it in place; but, once the artwork, such as it was, was freed and trashed, I had a beautiful, impressive frame. I took it and the Edmund Blair Leighton print I'd been storing to Joann Fabrics, where the lady behind the framing counter had it mounted and professionally backed in half an hour. For only $10. It looks fabulous. I always find plenty of children's books in great shape for Ariel's classroom; sometimes I can get Dr. Suess for a quarter each. The yard sale is where I found most of the baby toys upstairs and the tea cart that now graces my front porch.
Can you believe it was only $1? All it needed was a little white spray paint. I found a coffee table for Charming's first college apartment, $5, in great shape, and a knick-knack shelf, $1, which comes in handy at Christmas time. And the baby clothes! I have a most difficult time resisting all the baby clothes. Well, let's face it: I DON'T resist. Ariel's old closet is testimony to that. In my defense, I assert that I WILL have grandchildren some day, and those grandchildren WILL need clothes, and why not go ahead and buy them now, especially when they're brand spanking new and often only fifty cents a piece. Ditto for the automatic swing - very gently used and only $5. No way was I gonna pass that up. The best towels in my house were found for fifty cents each, original price tags of $15 each still attached, and Fred always manages to find an old computer that needs some tender, loving care. The basement used to be full of those old castoffs. He tinkers with them a while, then either gives them away or stores them for who knows what.I really can't say anything. Those yard sale Christmas dishes have been shoved underneath the basement shelves for over three years now.
I planned a month in advance for this year's sale, arranging to take the following night off work, so that I wouldn't have to sleep my Saturday away. I dug through my closet for my pink leather fanny pack and finally found it in the suitcase we had last used for Disneyworld.
(Fanny packs make yardsaling a breeze: no purse to carry, easy access to phone, car keys, change, bills, and checkbook; sure, they're not exactly in vogue, but...hey, it's a yardsale.) I called Prince Charming and asked if he and Cinderella could join me. No, he said, he had a band competition that morning, and Cindy would be with him. Ariel wasn't sure about it; Eric would be working, and that was awfully early... She'd thing about it and call back. Fred asked Granny about coming up; she asked if we'd like to have breakfast first at BJs. Well, NO, I didn't want to have breakfast at BJs; BJs serves good old traditional breakfast food - you know, sausage and bacon and eggs and milk gravy and biscuits. All the stuff that I detest about breakfast. And besides, when I got home from work, I was gonna be ready to start yardsaling. I told Fred he and Granny could go to BJs and meet me later, but no, that wouldn't do. If I wasn't going, he wasn't going... Well, let's see: I don't like their food, I'll miss out on the best hour of yardsaling, and I'm dieting; no, absolutely no BJs for me. Granny decided she'd stay around her home and go yardsaling in Nashville. MamaCilla, my best friend, had said she would go to the yardsale with me, but forgot as the date drew near, and made other plans. But would I please look out for a crib in good condition for her new grandson? It's okay. I didn't mind going alone.
Ariel called me at work Friday night and said that she had picked up her wedding gown at David's Bridal that afternoon and would be bringing it up the next day. Keeping it away from Eric's prying eyes. She and Belle would leave Murfreesboro about 7:00, which would put them in Pleasant View around 8:00. Great, I told her, just call me when you get here and I'll tell you where to find me. Now, THIS would be fun. The forecast called for a beautiful, sunny day, with a high temperature in the mid 80's. We would scour each sale for wedding items, for the flower pots I needed, for children's books, and for miscellaneous junk. We would go out for lunch and maybe see Earth, the new Disney Nature film. With eager expectations, I clocked out at 5:45, stopped by McDonalds for a quick breakfast, and raced home.
Fred was dressed in his painting clothes, awaiting his sausage biscuits and hashbrowns. "You're not going?" I asked. "No, I wanta get the deck finished while the weather's good." Great! Just us girls.
Yes, I'm still a girl. If you divide the world up into boys and girls, I'm still a girl.
I quickly changed clothes, hooked my fanny pack around my waist (I had to let it out a horrifying two inches! Kicking the diet into high gear NOW) and filled it with all my stuff, plus all the quarters in the loose change jar and all Fred's one dollar bills. I drove down our street slowly, eyeing everybody's odds and ends, out on display for all the world to see. Funny how we have no reticence about that. We willingly take the worst of our belongings, the hodge podge of our daily lives, and scatter it over our impeccable front lawns for the neighbors and strangers to paw through. Stuff that we've had in our homes, worn on our bodies, and are now willing to sell for mere pennies. Knowing that they know that if they don't cart the stuff away, we'll be GIVING it to Goodwill. I saw nothing I couldn't live without; I'd head on over to Town Pride, the upscale subdivision where I always found the good stuff. But...what in the world...? As I neared our house again, I noticed the open garage door of our neighbor's house; our neighbor's house which was up for sale and vacant at the moment. Why in the world was the garage door standing wide open? The most recent occupants had reneged on their agreement to buy the property, under their lease/purchase plan, and at long last had been evicted just days before. I wasn't sure if they had left the door open as revenge or mistake or perhaps had been there cleaning and just run out to the store. It worried me though; I'd best run on over to the realtor's house and report it.
As it turned out, Mr. Realtor was participating in the big yard sale, so I had a valid excuse for stopping by. We chatted for several minutes and he assured me he would run by the house very soon and make sure he left it locked up tight. Okay, FINALLY I was ready to do some shopping. I hit three houses in Town Pride and came up empty: no pots, no wedding stuff, not even any children's books. One crib, $125, with no mattress; seemed outrageously expensive to me, but it looked great; I'd keep it in mind and call MamaCilla later. I called Charming, the musician, about a snare drum in a case; he asked several questions, but decided he didn't want it. "Wait," I told him, "there's another sort of case here. Nice, big, hard case, maybe for a keyboard or something, four latches, shaped sorta like a half circle. It's well padded on the inside and has two strappy things, like for holding down a guitar neck or something." It was a curious case, but he determined its' purpose after only a few seconds: "Mom, I think it's for a bow and arrow." Oh. That explained the embossed mural of the deer and elk on the cover. "Thanks anyway," he said. I had the distinct impression he was rolling his eyes and laughing on the other end of the line.
At one house, I found some old tins from food products of long ago, lard and potato chips.
I called Fred's friend, the antique collector, who thought the four cans were well worth the $6 price tag. "Go ahead and get 'em and I'll pay you back," he instructed. Into my trunk they went. The Suzy Homemaker kitchen toys from the 60's, the pint-sized oven, refrigerator, cupboard, washer and dryer, were calling my name, but, even though I stared longingly at them for several minutes, I resisted. Fred had been in fine, generous spirit lately, and I wasn't gonna do anything to push his benevolence. Suzy Homemaker could have very effectively pushed him right back into Tightwadville. Fred called in crisis: he was running dangerously low on spray paint; would I please stop by Van's and pick up five cans? Sure, I told him, I'll be home in a few hours. No, he said, he needed the paint NOW. Oh, alright. I left Town Pride and drove on to Van's, where Van himself sold me the paint with Charming's employee discount, even though Charming hasn't worked there in over two years.
Van is a treasure. Pleasant View is lucky to have him.
Somebody had set up a yardsale in the parking lot of the pharmacy, adjacent to Van's. Oh, I'm RIGHT here, I might as well just take a peek, I thought. They had a terrific looking crib with a mattress for $100. I took pictures with my cell phone and tried to figure out how to send them to MamaCilla. They went somewhere, but she never got them. I imagine they're still floating around somewhere in cyberspace.
Incidentally, these were the first pictures I'd ever intentionally taken with my phone camera; the only ones I'd taken heretofore revealed nothing more than darkness, as they were all pictures of the inside of my pocket.
And no, I have no idea how to text. But, I do know how to set the alarm for a fifteen minute nap before I clock in at night.
I wonder if you can get any kind of government assistance for being technologically disadvantaged?
Oh, look, HG Hills was having a one day only sale. I remembered scanning the sale paper earlier in the week and seeing some good buys. It would only take a minute... I got all (5) of the 48 ounce bottles of Wesson Oil they had, at $2 each, chicken breasts for $1 a pound, Hunts Ketchup for seventy nine cents each, (had a coupon on that - they ended up costing me only twenty nine cents each!) and bananas at thirty nine cents a pound. Nice little haul.
Finally, I made my slow way back home, carefully navigating the narrow roads, forced by parked cars and pedestrians into one lane in most places. I delivered Fred's paint, put the groceries away, and waited about ten minutes for Ariel and Belle. They both came in the house carrying David's Bridal bags - Ariel with the dress and Belle with all the accoutrements. It's all hanging in Ariel's old closet now.
Opening that closet is like lifting the lid on a time capsule of Ariel's life: in addition to all the new baby clothes I store, it also houses Ariel's old baby and little girl dresses I just couldn't bear to toss, her graduation cap and gown, and now the wedding dress and veil. I've found myself several times just standing in front of the open closet, feeling pleasantly sad and nostalgic for the irretrievable days of her childhood. (Confession: I borrowed and slightly paraphrased that line from Ira Levin. It's one of my favorites, along with Margaret Mitchell's "{Ashley} had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O’Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother’s velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster." Now, THAT'S good writing.)It was almost 9:00 by the time Ariel, Belle, and I finally set out to yardsale in earnest. Ariel came prepared: she handed out handy canvas totes to each of us. We started on Church Street, parking at one end and walking through front yards to the other. (Ariel: "I wish I could whistle for my car and it'd come down here and pick us up.") The girls each found a few books, and I got a set of photo coasters, but I was bitterly disappointed with the lack of quality merchandise, and feeling quite guilty that I had encouraged them to make the long drive here for such a lackluster event. I half-heartedly browsed through a rack of women's clothing, hung on a shower rod between two ladders. Ten dollars for THIS? Seven for THAT? Appalling prices! Why, the last yardsale we had held...what...two years ago, maybe?...I had priced all clothing items at a quarter, and after lunchtime, had announced 'buy one, get FIVE free.' One lady had bought practically all of my plus-size clothes; wish I had them back, now. A word of advice: don't ever get rid of your fat clothes. I pawed through a stack of VHS tapes: Titanic, Top Gun, Sleepless in Seattle, Beethoven and all its' sequels, the Jesus tape I always find. Some well meaning Christian group had placed a copy of this tape on every Pleasant View citizen's porch several years ago. Like most that I have spotted in yardsales, this one had never been removed from its' cellophane wrapper, the words Complimentary - Not For Sale clearly visible on the front cover. And right next to those words, a neon pink twenty-five cent sticker. Tsk, tsk. Ooohh, there's a corn mug! I hurried toward it. Six dollars?! Was it Shawnee? Nope, Made in China was stamped on the bottom. You may get SOME sucker, I thought, but I KNOW my corn stuff.
Hmmm...there was a...no...I'm actually not sure what that was.
At last, there was a box of books! Shoot, they were all romance novels. Not interested. Another box down the street a ways. Mostly do-it-yourself magazines and a couple of books on knitting and crocheting. Where were all the children's books, I wondered aloud. A nearby lady told us she had just come from Harris Farms, a fairly new subdivision, where she had found lots of children's and adult books. Okay, thank you, we told her, we'd check it out. More stuff, a $100 red and yellow Coca Cola child's pedal car, a huge ceramic cookie jar, styled to resemble a fifties diner, cassette tapes and record albums, the obligatory assortment of coffee cups and bud vases. Nothing that interested me at all. I did, however, find a great crib. Bassett, solid oak, Shaker-style, with the mattress, sheet, bed skirt, and nursery rhymes bumper pad for $65. I called MamaCilla, explained to her that I was completely inept when it came to sending photos, but gave a good description. "Get it," she said. Done. I came back later in Fred's pick-up truck to retrieve it.
The morning was already hot, pollen was thick in the air, and my body responded with red watering eyes, sniffly nose, swollen throat, and red blotchy swollen skin. We made our way back up to where I thought we had parked. "Isn't that your car?" I asked, when Ariel passed by a silver vehicle. "No, Mom, we're a little farther on," she said indulgently. At the next makeshift parking lot, I questioned her again. "Is THAT your car?" Ariel chuckled audibly. "No, Mom, just a little farther." By the time we had finally made it back to her car, my poor swollen feet were screaming for release from the Reeboks in which they had been imprisoned for fourteen hours. What in the world had I been thinking, going yardsaling, after standing on concrete all night long? What in the world had I been thinking, traipsing off in the pollen-laden outdoors, without my allergy pill? What in the world had I been thinking, filling this fanny pack with all these heavy quarters? I was exhausted and the heat was making me so sleepy... "Y'all are gonna hafta drop me off at home," I said. "I'm gonna hafta get a little nap."
So much for my yardsaling.
After a couple of hours, during which I slept maybe twenty minutes, they had returned, with plenty of good finds. Belle, who is contemplating opening a used book store, bought 100 good quality books for only seventeen dollars. Darn. I sure missed out. We all piled into my car now and drove down to the Pleasant Dragon for lunch. Fred, of course, declined our invitation. Chinese? Yuck. He'd stay there, finish the painting, and eat a meatloaf sandwich. 'Village.'
"We ate off the meager buffet and laughed at our fortunes, (I'm going to be wealthy,) then we gave Belle the 'scenic' drive through Pleasant View. We pointed out the grocery store, Van's Hardware, city hall (a small metal warehouse out in the middle of nowhere,) our one traffic light, the medical center, which houses the town's only elevator, and made a circle through the still-under-construction. "It's creepy," Ariel told Belle. "It is not creepy," I defended it, "it's charming." "Creepy, Stepford-ish creepy," Ariel maintained. Dear Belle was diplomatic: she conceded that it was charming, but being unfinished and set in the middle of nowhere (seems to be a recurring theme in Pleasant View,) it did exude a small creepiness factor.We made one more stop, at the Coach House, where it seemed several families had united in the parking lot with their sale items. On my way to check out a guitar for Fred, ($450; no thank you,) I passed a full length mirror, leaning back on the open tailgate of a pickup truck. I was horrified at my image - how much weight had I gained? I decided right then and there that I was going to have to step on the dreaded scales this week; I'd put it off way too long. Of course, the only reason I don't step on them regularly is that THEY LIE. Deceitful, spiteful little white metal square, I detest the way it can't immediately make up its' mind - up a pound or two, no, down a pound or two, no up a pound or two...ah, there it is, up THREE pounds. Wretched little liar.
I finally found something for the wedding, two sets of clear Christmas lights on white wire. Got them for the bargain price of fifty cents; we'd use them, along with three strands I had stored with my Christmas stuff, draped icicle style, behind the tablecloths on the buffet and bar tables.
I was simply astounded that I had found no pots or plant containers of any sort.
Belle had to be home by 4:30, so the movie was out. We came back home, where I showed them the plain white folding fans I'd finally located on
"Oriental Trading's website, $6 a dozen, as well as the lilac drawstring bags for the birdseed. This is also where I had found the bride and groom toilet paper. "Look, how 'bout this wedding bell trash can cover?" I asked Ariel. "No, I don't think we need anything like that," she said. "But it's only $3.29," I pointed out. "And it'll sure look a whole lot better than just a plain black trash can." She repeated that we didn't need the stretchy white cover. Uh, Ariel? Guess what? I ordered it anyway. You can thank me later.I'm not holding my breath.
We ordered the personalized M&Ms (thank you, Andrew!) after going several rounds about the design. "Just take a look at the Disney ones," I implored Ariel. She rolled her eyes. "Look, they've got Cinderella and the Prince dancing in silhouette..." "No, Mom," "...or this one, with the wedding bells..." "No," "...or this one, Happily ever After..." "No, just our names on one and the date on the other." Shoot. If I ever renew my vows, I'm gonna get me some of those Disney M&Ms.
Ariel presented me a gift: a framed photo of herself and Eric. She showed me the invitations, which have small embossed 'frames' on the fronts; small wallet-sizes of this photo will be perfect for the invitations. The photos are good. Eric has a tendency to look "goofy" - Ariel's word, not mine - but these photos show no signs of goofiness whatsoever.
Ariel and Goofy. Those Disney M&Ms would have been perfect.
I refrained from hugging the girls goodbye, as I was beginning to feel that my extreme fatigue and other symptoms could be indicitive of something more than allergies. I took a four hour nap and awoke feeling worse. By the next day, my throat was sore enough that I wanted nothing but ice cream, (although I did manage to force down a large popcorn at the movies,) and I had developed chills and a low-grade fever. I called the annoying automated service for the Post Office to report that I would be taking sick leave. "What is the begin date of your leave?" the pleasant female voice questioned me. I gave it, then, "What is the end date of your leave? If you don't know, say 'I don't know.'" "I don't know," I obediently repeated. "I'm sorry," the voice said, "I THINK you said yes; if this is not correct, say 'go back.' "Go back." The voice repeated the question, I repeated "I don't know," and once again, the voice thought I said, 'yes.' I had to croak out my reply four times, before I finally just wised up and gave the voice some sorta date. How could I possibly know how long I would be sick? Stupid voice.
Fred says I have the new swine flu. I'm sure I don't, but I DID look up the symptoms online. Fever, cough, sore throat, headache, body aches, chills, extreme fatigue...yep, got 'em all. Why can't I get something that includes loss of appetite?
And why did it have to strike on the day of the yardsale?
Just wait til next year.
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