Tag Archives: rusty knives

Purchase our burden

Yesterday was my very first yard sale experience ever. I guess “yard sales” are what you have when your stuff is not nice enough to eBay. It was not in my yard, as I do not have so much of a yard as a deck swarming with stray cats. There’s Other Cat, Other Other Cat, Mangy Cat, Black Yelly Cat, and now Son of Other Cat is old enough to poke around. Official Cat, who lives in the house, presses herself against the screen and hisses in long blasts as the others eat the parsley and cilantro in my herb garden. But I digress.

This yard sale took place at the house of my in-laws, who are making a valiant last stand against clutter. The event reinforced all that I hate about humanity, as parades of poorly dressed people stomped around the lawn, attempting to damage things to shore up their haggling position. “Oh, this glass is scratched…” “But I just saw you do that with your key chain!”

We soon adopted the attitude of “You want it? One dollar, get out of my sight — oh hell, take it for free, I just never want to look at you again.” People in nicer cars tended to bargain fiercely. Why did the man in the Lexus SUV want the stringless weed trimmer so badly?

By far, my favorite moment was the father and daughter who spoke Spanish to each other, giggling to themselves about how crappy all the stuff is. Since it was not my stuff (our meager contributions sold first!), I listened in, enjoying that I still remembered the words for “trashy” and “cheap.” The daughter asked the size on a cast off Dynasty-esque dress belonging to a larger family member, and when told it was a 20, her eyes enlarged to saucer size and she yelped “My God, SO FAT” in Spanish and made an expansive gesture of girth. I finally shooed them away after they opted for a rusty knife set.

-xxoo