Garage Sale Part I: The Wrath of the Gods

I am so tired today. This was the long-awaited garage sale weekend. We had been previously outwitted in our sale efforts by weather and prior commitments, but this one was gonna be it, come hell or high water!

Be careful what you wish for. Or about saying anything within hearing of the Fates.

Sigh.

Yesterday dawned....cloudy, drab and wet. As per usual this summer. But, having faith in the Gods of summer despite their lack of general attendance this year, I got up at stupid-o'clock ( by which I mean any hour before 8am. At least.) to set up tables and plaster pre-printed price stickers (thank you, WalMart!) on all that stuff that I no longer wanted and/or couldn't be jammed into a suitcase for a cross-Atlantic flight. Which, as you may recall, is roughly ninety percent of everything I have ever owned in my entire life or vaguely equivalent to the complete contents of a high-rise apartment building, courtesy of the spacial rupture in my bedroom closet which somehow allowed it to hold approximately three thousand times it's actual mathematically-calculated physical capacity in accumulated junk... erm... treasure.

*gasps in a deep breath, recovering from that sentence*

So. Tables were up, stuff had prices, spare change was hurriedly found. I should mention that all of this was taking place literally inside the garage which, though we insist on calling them garage sales here in the rural wide open spaces of prairie Canada, is actually completely wrong as these things invariably happen in the driveway or on our front lawns. However, despite my unflinching faith in the Gods of summer (you can't help but believe in Gods who will throw blistering sunshine and plague-like hordes of mosquitoes at you in the same afternoon, then make sunscreen and bug spray impossible to wear together. Only a spiteful... I mean playful... God would dream up that particular hell, forcing you to choose between third-degree sunburn and disease-carrying, itchy mosquito bites)...where was I? Oh, yes, despite my irrational faith I couldn't really help noticing the big dark clouds accumulating overhead. And the ominous thunder in the distance. Oh...and the fact that it was already raining. Yeah. Determination can only get you so far. Still, I lived in hope that there would be a quick shower then sunshine and rainbows would rule. Tra la la.

So you know what happened. It was bound to. I mean, I had flagrantly mocked the Fates and tempted the Gods beyond all endurance. The heavens opened up and it poured. Great gushing gallons of rain spilling from the sky, with me trapped in the garage along with all my worldly possessions. Just typical.

Thank the stars for those hardy garage saling souls who will not be turned aside by flood, fire or frippery when making their Saturday rounds. The sale was open for a grand total of an hour and a half before being shut down due to the combined power of the second scariest thunderclap/lighting bolt of my life and the fact that everything from my very first baby doll to my very recent and expensive craft books were mouldering and wilting in the damp air. And yet I still managed to make almost a hundred dollars. Go figure. I think a large part of that had something to do with people not wanting to actually step back out into the wet and the very real risk of death by lightning once they were in the relative dryness (and by dryness, I mean air so wet you practically needed scuba gear to breathe) and safety of the garage. Or it could have been the superior quality of my second-hand junk beckoning them in from the street and mesmerising everyone with the previously-owned goodness of it all. One of those.

So...two hours of lugging and sorting and pricing for an hour and a half of selling, garnering me a whole $92.85. Oh yeah. It was worth it.

I can hardly wait for next weekend, when I can have the pleasure of experiencing Garage Sale Part II: Sell Harder, where we will see our plucky heroine spit in the eye of the Gods and win a victory for garage salers everywhere. The heartwarming tale of the summer.

At least I don't have to price anything next time.

*gets a sinking feeling*

Oh...

wait...

...except that giant pile of superior second-hand stuff that was somehow completely forgotten in the basement when the sale items were being dragged out into the storm yesterday.

Well, crap.